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A COMMENTARY UPON TENNY- 
SON'S "IN MEMORIAM" 



N 

m 



Ai^FRED Tennyson 



LWlNG BY ARNAULT 
ERMISSION OF 



RAPHIC COMPANY, NEW 



A Commentary Upon 

Tennyson's In 
Memoriam 



By 
Henry E. Shepherd, M.A., LL.D. 

Author of '*Life of Robert Edward Lee," etc. 




New York and Washington 

THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 

1908 






LIBRARY or CONGRESS 
IwoCoDres KectN-M 

JUL 1 1^08 

CLA&SA AXc. fi^, 

L_JiOPYa 



Copyright, 1908, by 
THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 



To 

My Wife and Daughter 

I Dedicate this Commentary, 

With Loving Gratitude and 

Devoted Affection. 



A Commentary Upon 
Tennyson's "In Memoriam" 

It Is impossible to reveal In adequate form 
the genius of a great master of either prose 
or poetry by mere abstract description, how- 
ever faithful In conception or forceful In pre- 
sentation that description may be. The con- 
crete study of the poets alone reveals their 
power — the power of Dante In the Divine 
Comedy, Goethe In Faust, Shakespeare In 
Hamlet, Milton In Lycidas, Tennyson In In 
Memoriam. 

The first edition of In Memoriam was pub- 
lished in 1850, the year of Wordsworth's 
death and of Tennyson's accession to the 
office of Laureate. While many verbal or 
phrasal emendations have marked the fas- 
tidious revisions of the poet, there have been 
few additions to the body of the work. The 
most noteworthy of these Is probably the 
section designated In later editions as No. 
39, which was incorporated into the text in 
1869. Among the supreme achievements of 
elegiac English poetry, In Memoriam as- 
sumes the first place. / Those that precede it 



8 A Commentary Upon 

in point of time * and form part of the 
series of masterpieces to which it belongs, 
are Milton's Lycidas, 1638; Dryden's Ode 
In Memory of Mrs. Killigrew, 1686; 
Shelley's Adonais, 1821. Matthew Arnold's 
Thyrsis, a poem, inspired by the death of his 
cherished friend, Arthur Hugh Clough, did 
not appear until 1866, sixteen years later 
than In Memoriam. Its grace and delicacy 
of execution, as well as its tenderness and 
plaintiveness of tone, have won for it an abid- 
ing rank among the foremost elegies of our 
language./ The elegies of the Elizabethan 

J *The special student of our early English literature 
f will find in a late fourteenth century poem, known as 
Pearl, some points that are suggestive or anticipatory of 
In Memoriam. It has been described as the " visionary 
lament of a father over his lost daughter Margaret, his 
pearl, dead in early childhood, and found by him in 
glory within a Paradise described in the opening stanzas." • 
There is an admirable edition by Mr. I. Gollancz of 
Christ College, Cambridge. The work has been attrib- 
uted to Chaucer's " philosophical Strode," to whom, with 
the " Moral Gower," Chaucer dedicated his Troilus. 
/Elegiac poetry had made marked progress in our litera- 
ture long before the coming of our Elizabethan age, and 
Pearl is a worthy precursor of Lycidas and In Memoriam^f^ 
The prelusive quatrain which follows was written for 
Mr. Gollancz's edition of Tennyson: 

THE PEARL 

" We lost you — for how long a time — 
Thou Pearl of our poetic prime, 
We found you, and you gleam reset. 
In Britain's lyric coronet, ' 



Tennyson's '' In Memoriam '^ 9 

age and the age preceding — such as the 
tribute of the Earl of Surrey to his friend 
and co-worker, Sir Thomas Wyatt, or the 
many tributes evoked by the death of Sir 
Philip Sidney — need not be considered 
here. 

Among the master elegies that have been 
named, Lycidas and In Memoriam probably 
sustain the most intimate relation, their points 
of affinity being marked, despite the dif- 
ferences of personal and historical surround- 
ings that distinguish them. The circum- 
stances of their composition, the character- 
istics of the times in which they were pro- 
duced, and the relations sustained by the 
two poets to the heroes of the two elegies de- 
mand at least a moment's consideration before 
we pass to the critical and minute study of 
In Memoriam. 

Lycidas was written in 1637, and was occa- 
sioned by the death of Edward King, who 
had been a college friend of Milton's at Cam- 
bridge. King was lost at sea in August, 1637. 
The poem was published in 1638 as a contri- 
bution to a volume of memorial verses issued 
by students of the university as an expression 
of regard for King, which possibly rose above 
the plane of the merely perfunctory and con- 
ventional. 



lo A Commentary Upon 

'In Memoriam, which appeared more than 
two centuries later, was occasioned by the 
death of Arthur Henry Hallam, a young man 
of twenty-two, of rare promise and a phe- 
nomenal range of acquirements, who had been 
Tennyson's friend at Trinity College,* Cam- 
bridge, and was betrothed to a sister of the 
poet. To young Hallam, who was born Feb- 
ruary I, 1811, Nature had been prodigal of 
her gifts. Despite an aversion to the science 
of mathematics, such as was characteristic 
of that other renowned pupil of Trinity, 
Thomas Babington Macaulay, and of Rob- 
ert Lowe during his student life at Oxford, 
Hallam's critical, creative, and acquisitive 
power was of an order that ranged him 
among the dawning lights of his genera- 
tion. Though educated for the legal pro- 
fession and admitted to the bar, the strong 
propensity of nature impelled Hallam to the 
study of literature and inspired him with a 
zealous devotion to the masters of Italian and 
Provengal poetry. His admiration for the 
Troubadours revealed itself in the affection- 
ate assiduity which appeared in his exegesis 
of their lays. Of " the world worn Dante " 
he was the skilful and scholarly interpreter, 

♦Alfred Tennyson entered Trinity College, Cambridge, 
in 1828; Arthur Hallam, in 1829. 



Tennyson's '' In Memoriam " 1 1 

a circumstance which elicited the familiar al- 
lusion in section 89 oi In Memoriam. Hal- 
lam's English sonnets were of no mean order. 
Especially is this true of the sonnet addressed 
to Miss Emily Tennyson, sister of the poet, 
whom he was instructing in the Italian lan- 
guage. 

" Lady, I bid thee to a sunny dome, 
Ringing with echoes of Italian song. 
Henceforth to thee these magic halls belong, 
And all the pleasant place Is like a home. 
Hark! on the night with full piano tone. 
Old Dante's voice encircles all the air; 
Hark! yet again, like flute-notes mingling rare 
Comes the keen sweetness of Petrarca's moan. 
Pass thou the lintel freely; without fear 
Feast on this music. I do better know thee 
Than to suspect this pleasure thou dost owe me 
Will wrong thy gentle spirit, or make less dear 
That element whence thou must draw thy life — 
An English maiden and an English wife." 

Hallam's friendship for Emily Tennyson 
ripened into love and love led to their be- 
trothal when the young lady was seventeen 
years of age. The fates, however, were not 
auspicious. '' The blind Fury with the ab- 
horred shears " soon " slit the thin spun life." 
Arthur Hallam died in Vienna, whither he 



12 A Commentary Upon 

had gone in quest of health, September 15, 
1833. He was found lying upon a sofa in 
his father's study, seemingly in gentle sleep.* 
His father, upon entering the room, supposed 
for a time that Arthur was quietly resting, 
and applied himself to his accustomed tasks. 
The cause of Hallam's death was the sudden 
rushing of blood to the head, a weakness to 
which he was subject, with many who devote 
their days and nights to intellectual or schol- 
arly pursuits. 

Sir Francis Doyle in his Reminiscences 
gives an interesting account of Hallam, styl- 
ing him " the young Marcellus of our 
poetry." His Remains were also printed by 
his father for private circulation in 1853. 
He was the cold and judicial historian of 
the English Constitution, the Middle Ages, 
and the Introduction to the Literature of 
Europe in the i^th, i6th and lyth Centuries. 
Mr. Gladstone has paid a bounteous tribute 
to the genius of young Hallam, and Tenny- 
son not only made him the hero of his noblest 
creation, but has introduced into his Palace of 
Art a bold and graphic phrase from his 
Theodicea Novissima.^ 

When we compare the inner life of Ly- 

* See In Memoriam, section 85. 

t The Palace of Art, lines 222, 223. 



Tennyson^ s ''In Memoriam** 13 

c'ldas and of In Me^noriam, we find that no 
such strong bond of friendship existed be- 
tween John Milton and Edward King as knit 
the soul of Alfred Tennyson to the soul of 
Arthur Hallam. It is certain that King was 
more marked by sweetness of temper and 
purity of heart than by brilliancy of intellect. 
In poetic power he stood at an almost infinite 
distance from Milton. He is a mere acces- 
sory in Lycidas itself to the general presenta- 
tion of the picture. The Puritan poet availed 
himself of King's death as an eligible occasion 
for setting forth In allegorical drapery — sug- 
gested by Milton's critical acquaintance with 
ancient and with Italian poetry — the passion- 
ate enthusiasm, the Intense earnestness per- 
vading the cause of which he was the supreme 
artistic exponent. In 1637 we are but five 
years from the beginning of the great Civil 
War, 1642. The policy of Laud and of 
Wentworth was rushing to Its climax — ^the 
one In church, the other in state. All the 
complex forces embraced In Puritanism were 
converging to their Issue. It Is only In a sub- 
ordinate or secondary sense that Lycidas may 
be regarded as a personal elegy. Religious 
fervor Is tempered by artistic grace to a de- 
gree probably never surpassed in the evolu- 
tion of our literature. It is the supreme 



14 A Commentary Upon 

achievement of the Puritan genius in the 
sphere of art and of art consecrated to re- 
ligion. 

In the history of our race and language no 
such monument has been reared to the mem- 
ory of any man as Tennyson has erected to 
perpetuate the name and renown of 
Hallam. 

" Who so sepulchered, in such pomp dost lie, 
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die." 

Although In Memoriam did not see the 
light until 1850, it is certain that the poet's 
" shaping spirit of imagination " began its 
creation not long after Hallam's death in 
1833. It was written at various times and in 
different places in Lincolnshire, Essex, 
Gloucestershire, Wales — wherever and when- 
ever, to adopt the poet's own expression, '' the 
spirit moved him to the task.'V A concise 
review of the tendencies of the age which 
saw the Inception of the poem Is requisite to 
complete, or even to render intelligible, the 
broad lines of difference that distinguish the 
crowning work of Milton from the sovereign 
achievement of Tennyson In the same sphere 
of poetic art. 

The fervor of the great day which had been 
preluded by the French Revolution was slowly 



Tennyson's '' In Memoriam ** 15 

sinking into the decorous and prosaic uni- 
formity of modern and contemporary life. 
Sir Walter Scott and Goethe had died in 
1832, the year of the reform bill — the year 
preceding Hallam's death; Keats, Shelley, 
and Byron had passed to their rest; Coleridge 
had long ago abandoned poetry for philoso- 
phy and criticism; a rational appreciation of 
Wordsworth was beginning to develop; Ar- 
nold was in the early years of his Rugby 
epoch; Macaulay had gained assured fame by 
his essay on Milton, 1825; Pauline, Brown- 
ing's first distinctive poem, was published in 
1833; in 1834 Thomas Carlyle fixed his per- 
manent abode in London; in July, 1833, 
Keble preached his sermon on the National 
Apostasy, which is regarded by discerning and 
judicious historians as marking definitely the 
beginning of the Anglo-Catholic movement. 
The teachings of the age of Laud appeared 
once more, inculcated by the mellow grace of 
Newman's style, always suggestive of im- 
mense reserve power, always lacking the very 
suspicion of constraint or effort. As the 
poetry and romance of Scott fell back upon 
the medieval day for inspiration, so the Ox- 
ford school — for Newman was an ardent ad- 
mirer of Scott — reverted to a vanished Cath- 
olic age, such as Laud had endeavored to re- 



1 6 A Commentary Upon 

call in his strivings after " the beauty of 
holiness." 

We trust that this general explanation of 
the evolution of In Memoriam, the circum- 
stances of its composition, its relation to the 
other master elegies of our language, as well 
as to the dominant tendencies of its own era, 
will serve to convey to the reader some im- 
pression of its aim and character, ■^hc poem 
proper extends through a period of three or 
four years, dating from the death of Hallam, 
September 15, 1833, — the epilogue having 
reference principally to an event which oc- 
curred October 10, 1842, nine years after the 
death of the hero. In Memoriam was written 
between 1833 and 1849, the interval which 
saw the rise, the expansio)^ and the climax of 
the Oxford movement. '.'The object of the 
poem, concisely expressea, is to portray the 
several phases or stages of development 
through which a human soul,, stricken with 
the burden of a crowning sorrow, may pass in 
the process of restoration and recovery, to the 
attainment of assured and supreme hope. No 
creation of genius is less amenable to the sus- 
picion of pantheism or the charge of agnostic 
tendency. No uninspired creation has set forth 
the doctrine of personal immortality with 
purer artistic grace or more definite and tri- 



Tennyson^ s ''In Memoriam^* 17 

umphant faith. The trumpet note of Lycidas 
Is not thrilled with deeper Intensity of spirit- 
ual life. It Is the anthem of an Incoming mil- 
lennium, the forecast of a golden day, when 
the new heavens and the new earth — wherein 
dwelleth righteousness — shall be filled with 
redeemed and august Intelligences of which 
Arthur Hallam was the personal foreshadow- 
ing, the concrete typeXThe range and scope 
of In Memoriam is practically boundless. It 
takes all human knowledge and all spiritual 
development for its province. Every feature , 
of our complex modern life, the beginnings 
of our rich and expanding scientific achieve- 
ment, the unfolding of political conscious- 
ness, the awakening of antique forms and 
long-gone melodies — Imagery that rivals the 
graces of the classic world or approaches the 
triumphs of the Renaissance — all are lucidly 
mirrored, all blend in the perfect harmony. 
As Lycidas Is the crowning achievement of 
the Puritan genius In the sphere of poetic art, 
so In Memoriam is the purest and subtlest 
Interpretation of that multiform life — In Its 
nobler aspects and deeper phases — which Is 
the characteristic of our own age. In the 
eras to come It will be accredited as " the mas- 
terlight of all our seeing." . . . The poem 
Is Introduced or prefaced by a prologue of 



1 8 A Commentary Upon 

eleven stanzas. This Introduction was ap- 
parently written after the body of the work 
had been completed, and Is dated 1849. The 
tone of resignation and supreme faith that 
pervades It would strongly suggest Its com- 
position after the stage of doubt and despon- 
dency had been thoroughly and triumphantly 
encountered./ 
. The peculiar riming combination of In 
' Memoriam — the first line according with the 
fourth, the second with the third — Is a theme 
not unworthy of Investigation by the assidu- 
ous student of our metrical history. This char- 
acteristic stanza form may perhaps be discov- 
ered among the poetical combinations of the 
Romance languages, but Its advent In our ver- 
nacular does not seem to precede the seminal 
and germinal age of great Elizabeth. The 
earliest specific example of Its use in English 
that we have been able to trace. Is Sir Philip 
Sidney's version of the XXXVII Psalm, exe- 
cuted in connection with his accomplished 
sister, the Countess of Pembioke, about 1580. 
The accompanying stanzas will Illustrate the 
degree of ease and fluidity of movement it 
attained, in that which was probably the first 
conscious or deliberate endeavor to naturalize 
and assimilate its flexible and far-reaching 
graces in our own language : 



Tennyson^ s ^^ In Memoriam** 19 

" Fret not thyself if thou do see, 

That wicked men on earth do seem to flourish ; 
Nor envy in thy bosom nourish 
Though ill deeds well succeeding be. 

" They soon shall be cut down like grasse, 
And wither like green herb or flower; 
Do well and trust on heavenly power 
Thou shalt have both good food and place. 

" Delight in God and He shall breede 

The fullness of thine own heart's lusting; 
Guide thee by Him, lay all thy trusting 
On Him and He will make it speed." 

As a later illustration one of Spenser's ele- 
gies on the death of Sir Philip Sidney, 1586, 
may be cited as exhibiting the peculiar blend- 
ing of the rimes. 

" To praise thy life or wait thy worthy death, 
And want thy wit, thy wit, high, pure, divine, 
I3 far beyond the power of mortal line. 
Nor any one hath worth that draweth breath. 

" Drawn was thy race aright from princely line 
Nor less than such (by gifts that Nature gave, 
The^ common mother that all creatures have). 
Doth virtue show and princely lineage shine." 

The same combination may be found in 
Campion and Rossiter's Book of Airs, 1601, 
and in some of the elegies of Sir Walter 



20 A Commentary Upon 

Batelelgh. In the Underwoods of Ben Jon- 
son, elegy No. 39, we have the In Memoriam 
stanza with its Tennysonlan cadence thor- 
oughly developed. 

" Though beauty be the mark of praise, 
And yours of whom I sing be such 
As not the world can praise too much, 
Yet 'tis your Virtue now I raise. 

" But who could less expect from you, 
In whom alone love lives again, 
By whom he Is restored to men. 
And kept and bred and brought up true." 

The next Illustration Is from Lord Herbert 
of Cherbury, " the first of the English 
Deists ' and brother of saintly George Her- 
bert. The poem Is entitled To Lucinda 
Upon a Question Whether hove Should Con- 
tinue For Ever. The author has caught 
the golden cadence of the In Memoriam 
stanza and has almost anticipated some of 
Its characteristic utterances : the casual reader 
might mistake several of his lines for those 
of the Laureate. 

" Not here on earth then, nor above, 
One good affection can impair: 
For where God doth admit the fair 
Think you that He excludeth Love? 



Tennyson* s '^ In Memoriam '' 21 

" These eyes again thine eyes shall see, 
These hands again thine hand unfold, 
And all chaste blessings can be told 
Shall with us everlasting be." 

The same riming combination was used by 
George Herbert, though with a frail measure 
of success, and was partly employed in a poem 
written by Abraham Cowley, at the age of 
twelve years. 

Strangely enough the In Memoriam form 
reveals itself where we should hardly look for 
its presence, in the age of Prior, Gay and 
Pope. In the verses of Prior, addressed to 
Halifax, we read: 

" So when in fevered dreams we sink. 
And waiting, taste what we desire, 
The real draught but feeds the fire, 
The dream is better than the drink. 

" Our hopes like towering falcons aim, 
At objects in an airy height; 
To stand aloof and view the fight, 
Is all the pleasure of the game." 

The unconscious improvisation of Dr. 
Whewell, the famed Master of Trinity at 
Cambridge, will suggest itself spontaneously : 



22 A Commentary Upon 

" There is no force, however great, 
Can stretch a cord, however fine, 
Into a horizontal line, 
And draw it accurately straight." 

Arthur Hugh Clough, the friend and con- 
temporary of Tennyson, not only employed 
the stanza, but with the change of a single 
word repeats one of Tennyson's most familiar 
couplets. In Clough's Peschiera, dated 1 849, 
the year preceding the publication of In Me- 
moriam, we read : 

" What voice did on my spirit fall 

Peschiera when thy bridge I crost ? 
'Tis better to have fought and lost, 
Than never to have fought at all. 

"Ah! not for idle hatred, not 

For honor, fame or self -applause. 
But for the glory of the cause 
You did what will not be forgot." 

In Clough's Alteram Partem^ which is an- 
other phase of the preceding poem, the In 
Memoriam stanza is continued and the famil- 
iar couplet referred to is again introduced. 
The In Memoriam stanza was not unknown 
to Dr. Donne, the quaint and fascinating 
Dean of St Paul's, some of whose lines are 



Tennyson^ s '' In Memoriam " 23 

among the richest and rarest that have been 
produced In any age of our literary develop- 
ment. In our time It has been employed 
with characteristic grace and felicity by D. 
G. RossettI In My Sister's Sleep, by Miss 
Christina RossettI In Enrica, and by Gerald 
Massey repeatedly, In his Babe Christabel 
and other poems, with admirable effect. Per- 
haps It may be regarded as an ungracious task 
to recall to the memory of our countrymen 
the fact that this renowned stanza has been 
thrilled with the breath of a new life by a 
Southern poet whose lips were touched by a 
live coal from off the Muses' altar, whose de- 
cadence and obsolescence Is our shame and 
our reproach.* 

We proceed now to the poem Itself. 

-iThe Introductory stanzas, or Prologue, 
are an Invocation of the " Strong Son of God, 
Immortal love," who Is to be received by 
faith and faith alone. The profound relig- 
ious tone that pervades the Invocation Is a 
foreshadowing of the assured result: the life 
of the poem Is set forth In the august prelud- 
ing stanza. The harmony and serenity re- 
flected throughout the Invocation strongly 
suggest, as has already been Intimated, that 
this portion of the poem was written after 

♦See Henry Timrod's Carmen Triumphale. 



24 A Commentary Upon 

the body of the work had been completed, 
and the period of doubt, unrest, *' obstinate 
questioning " had passed Into the assurance 
and the consolation of a perfect faith. /The 
prefatory poem Is dated 1849: It Is almost 
certain that the poem proper had attained Its 
present form before that time. The lines 
that succeed — 

" Whom we that have not seen Thy face 
By faith and faith alone embrace, 
Believing where we cannot prove," 

are suggestive of our Lord's declaration to 
Thomas, St John's Gospel, chapter 20, verse 
29, a passage that was upon the lips of Dr. 
Thomas Arnold in his dying hours.* 

God Is the supreme author of created 
beings, rational and Irrational. He hath 
made us and not we ourselves. Belief In 
immortality Is innate and intuitive. He will 
not leave us In the dust — almost the lan- 
guage of Psalm 16, verse 10. The relation 
of God to us involves the necessity of a per- 
sonal immortality and a personal resurrec- 
tion. The theanthropic nature of Christ — 
the God-Man — Is pointedly set forth In 
this stanza. Him " who is the brightness of 
His Father's glory, and the express Image of 
* Stanley's Life and Letters of Dr. Arnold, page 449. 



Tennyson's ''In Memoriam'' 25 

His person, In Whom dwelt all the fulness of 
the God-head bodily, In submission to whose 
win the only rational liberty consists, whose 
service Is perfect freedom. The late Princi- 
pal Tulloch, In his Movements of Religious 
Thought in Britain During the Nineteenth 
Century, Interprets the fifth stanza as having 
probable reference to the Broad Church 
Movement In the Anglican communion. 
" Tennyson himself In the whole spirit of his 
poetry Is the sufficient evidence of this wave 
of religious tendency and Its ascendency over 
the higher minds of the time. ' Strong Son 
of God, Immortal love, ' might be taken as 
the keynote of the [Broad Church] move- 
ment, and the closing verses of In Memoriam 
as a summary of Its thought. " 

The same spirit,* so Tulloch thinks. Is dis- 
cernible in sections 54, 55, and 56 of the 
poem. With the language of the fifth stanza 
may be compared the noble and suggestive 
words of " the blameless king." 

" The old order changeth, yielding place to^ new, 
And God fullfils Himself in many ways, 
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world." 

Faith is the substance of things hoped 

* The term " Broad Church " originated with Arthur 
Hugh Clough. 



26 A Commentary Upon 

for — the evidence of things not seen. It 
apprehends a definite object — It cannot exist 
as an abstraction. All faith Is the gift of 
God, even our dim and shadowy knowledge, 
our mere feeling after the truth If haply we 
may find It. May " the beam In darkness " 
grow and develop until It broadens Into the 
ample and golden light of the perfect day. 

The same sentiment which Is embodied In 
the seventh stanza finds its expression In a 
poem dedicated to James Speeding, J. S. 
Tennyson's honored friend — the subtle, 
acute, and scholarly Interpreter of the Baco- 
nian philosophy. 

" Make knowledge circle with the winds, 
But let her herald, reverence, fly 
Before her to whatever sky 
Bear seed of men and growth of minds." 

Harmony of Intellect and heart Is essential 
to the symmetrical development of our 
nature. The culture of the aesthetic and In- 
tellectual phrases, to the exclusion or subor- 
dination of the spiritual. Induces that lamen- 
table condition against which the poet's 
Palace of Art Is designed as a protest and a 
warning. The state therein depicted Is by 
no means ideal or imaginary. The history 
of the Italian Renaissance will suggest il- 



Tennyson's '' In Memoriam " 27 

lustrations — no era is entirely lacking in 
them. 

The diffusion of a spirit of reverence, not 
only restores the unity of mind and soul, but 
enlarges the range and the scope of Its power 
by expanding it Into a vaster harmony. The 
gifts of God are bestowed without reference 
to the merit of the receiver. Among men 
obligations are created by their bestowal; 
with God they are supremely free. The 
tenor of the Invocation is in thorough accord 
with the teachings of Scripture — it Is a 
lucid setting forth of some of Its profound- 
est and most vital truths. The poet closes 
this stately and majestic Introduction by ask- 
ing the divine forgiveness for the Immoder- 
ate grief, the *' wild and wandering cries " 
which he had poured out upon the death of 
Hallam. His life, he trusts, is unfolding its 
capacities amid the glorified Intelligences 
Into whose congenial fellowship he has 
passed. The poem proper begins with the 
renowned stanza which has become a part of 
the consciousness of English speech. 



The personal allusion In the first stanza — 
*' him who sings " — has been the subject of 
prolonged and unsatisfactory controversy. 



28 A Commentary Upon 

By a strange and somewhat arbitrary critical 
procedure it was interpreted as a reference 
to Longfellow's Ladder of St. Augustine^ 
which was published some years in advance 
of In Memoriam. The words of St Augus- 
tine in his sermon on the Ascension are: De 
vitiis nostris scalam nobis facimus — si vitiaa 
ipsa calcamus. The question has been settled 
for all time by Tennyson himself, who a few 
months before his death declared that he had 
in memory one of Goethe's last utterances, 
" Von Aenderungen zu hoheren Aenderun- 
gen, " — " From changes to higher changes, " 
— and that this was the inspiration of a 
stanza which has long since become the com- 
mon property of our race and language.* 

Nor do the lines refer in any exclusive or 
principal sense to our follies, frailties, or 
vices, but to those experiences, vicissitudes, 
and disciplinary processes upon which every 
human life is built, and from which we emerge 
or rise as upon " stepping-stones " to nobler, 
purer, and holier achievement. It is the char- 
acter that builds itself in the " stream of the 
world. " From another point of view it is 
the translating the " stubbornness of fortune " 

* I make this statement upon the authority of Lord 
Tennyson himself, who most kindly communicated the in- 
formation in a letter to myself dated November 3d, 1891. 



Tennyson's '^ In Memoriam^' 29 

into a sweeter and more quiet style. The en- 
tire poem is an expansion or elaboration of 
the fundamental thought embodied in this 
stanza. It is perhaps not generally known, 
except to special students of Tennyson, that 
although introducing the poem, it was one of 
the very last to be written. The poet then 
intimates that although men may rise to 
purer and nobler attainment by the chas- 
tening uses of adversity, that it is per- 
haps impossible to find an equivalent for our 
losses — to pierce the future and reap a benefit 
from grief. It is the part of wisdom to give 
unrestrained utterance to our feelings rather 
than to produce the impression that our sense 
of sorrow is merely transient, that *' all we 
were is overworn '* — effaced. 

II 

In the second section occurs the invocation 
of the 

" Old Yew which graspest at the stones 
That name the underlying dead." 

It is untouched by changes of time, the 
heat of the sun, the fierceness of the elements. 

While contemplating its '' stubborn hardi- 
hood " he seems to become incorporated into 
it. The yew tree is associated from time out 



30 A Commentary Upon 

of memory with the resting places of the 
dead. Gray's familiar lines in the Elegy will 
suggest themselves, as well as Wordsworth's 
poem to the Yew Tree. In the ancient my- 
thology the tree was apparently regarded as 
symbolical of the immortality of the soul, as 
is pointed out by Sir Thomas Browne in his 
Hydrioptaphia or Urn Burial, chapter 4. 
The despondent note that marks the earlier 
stages of the poem is not to be interpreted as 
a yielding to despair; it is simply the exhibi- 
tion of one of the processes in the evolution 
of the author's mind from gloom and " raven 
gloss " to the clear light of faith and hope. 

Ill 
The poet invokes sorrow and receives no 
comfort. The phantom Nature is a mere 
echo of his own voice, " a hollow form with 
empty hands." There is neither solace nor 
hope in a delusion — better banish the very 
suggestion of hope from such a source. The 
state of feeling often engendered by over- 
whelming sorrow is graphically portrayed in 
this section, but it does not indicate a per- 
manent attitude of mind. 

IV 
He takes refuge in sleep, " nature's soft 
nurse "; his will is subject to the darkness; he 
communes with his own heart on his bed — 



Tennyson's *' In Memoriam '' 31 

*' the painful sense of something lost '' Is 
ever before him. With the dawning of the 
morning the will asserts Its power and he de- 
termines not to yield to the phantom Sor- 
row. 

V 

He sometimes thinks It almost sinful to 
embody his grief In words, as they do not 
afford adequate expression like Nature men- 
tioned In No. 3, to which this section seems to 
refer; they merely echo our note of sorrow. 
Still, for a distracted spirit there Is at least 
solace In the mechanical exercise of verse- 
making, as It deadens the sensibilities by 
transferring the energies Into another sphere. 
He will therefore wrap himself " In words 
like weeds " or mourning garments — '' like 
coarsest clothes against the cold " ; the words, 
however, convey only an outline sketch — a 
dim Impression of that large grief which 
they temper but do not assuage. The poet 
seems to confirm the truth attested by all 
rational experience, that systematic employ- 
ment is second only to religion as a healing 
influence in seasons of sorrow. 

VI 
Then follow the cheap condolences, the 
platitudes of comfort — " loss is common to 



32 A Commentary Upon 

the race "; " other friends remain "; " Death 
is an event of daily occurrence," but that does 
not abate its sharpness; "the heart knoweth 
his own bitterness." Compare Hamlet, Act 
I, Scene II, 70-73. Then are cited several 
touching illustrations which show the strong 
individuality of every sorrow, its intensely 
personal character. Again the language of 
the myriad-minded poet suggests itself — 

" Every one can master a grief 
But he that hath it." 

VII 

The " dark house " is the home of the 
Hallam family, 67 Wimpole Street,* Lon- 
don, and was naturally associated with many 
of Tennyson's happiest recollections of 
Arthur Hallam. The position of the home 
is described in Gatty's Key to In Memo- 
nam^ and in Poems of Religion, Cassell's Li- 
brary of English Literature, edited by Pro- 
fessor Henry Morley. 

* During a recent sojourn in London I visited the house 
on a dark and gloomy morning, very similar to that 
described by the poet. It is now occupied by a surgeon. 
Wimpole Street being a favorite resort of the medical and 
surgical professions. 



Tennyson's '' In Memoriam '' 33 

VIII 
The meaning of the section is clear. A 
happy lover, glowing with hope and enthu- 
siasm, finds her whom he loves " gone and 
far from home''; "all the magic light dies 
off at once from bower and hall " ; gloom suc- 
ceeds to ecstatic anticipation; the place as- 
sumes a transformed aspect; so to the poet 
all the familiar haunts suggestive of Hal- 
lam's memory have lost their charm. Still, 
as the desolate lover may find some faded 
flower which once she nourished, so this poor 
flower of poesy may be dedicated to the mem- 
ory of his friend, planted on his grave that it 
m^y flourish there if it take root, or may 
fade there alone if it do not come to perfec- 
tion. For Hallam, it will be remembered, 
was endowed with a poetical faculty of no 
mean order, and a rare critical gift blended 
with it. Some of the most discriminating 
judgments that Tennyson's earher poems re- 
ceived came from his friend and hero. Like 
Lycidas, and much more than Lycidas, " he 
knew himself to build the lofty rhyme." 

IX 
An auspicious voyage is invoked for the 
ship which bears to England the remains of 
Arthur Hallam — who had died at Vienna, 



34 A Commentary Upon 

September 15, 1833. The body was not 
committed to Its final resting place In St. 
Andrew's Church, Clevedon, until January 
3, 1834. With this Invocation may be 
compared the lines of Horace to the ship 
which was to bring home his beloved, Vergil, 
Ode 1-3. 



In vision the poet sees the vessel proceed- 
ing on her way, bringing happy reunions and 
greetings, and prays that her " dark freight " 
may be brought In safety to Its English home 
amid ancestral names and associations. All 
our Instincts and sensibilities Incline us to 
prefer a resting place beneath the sod — or 
beneath the altar, where *' the kneeling 
hamlet " is wont to receive the sacred com- 
munion — to a grave in the abysmal deeps of 
the ocean. 

The last stanza of No. 10 may be sugges- 
tively compared with Jonah, chapter 2, 
verse 5 — " The waters compassed me about, 
even to the soul; the depth closed me round 
about, the weeds were wrapped about my 
head." 



Tennyson* s '^ In Memoriam*' 35 

XI 

Upon the succeeding morning an intense 
calm pervades all nature. Wordsworth's 
well-known sonnet, 

" It is a beauteous evening calm and free " 

may be read in connection with this passage. 
The scenery described is a reminiscence of 
some familiar Lincolnshire wold which the 
strong and abiding impressions of youth had 
wrought into the memory of the poet. The 
calmness of his own mind is merely the calm- 
ness of despair. 

XII 

He is borne by some resistless impulse to- 
ward the ship that is conveying the body of 
Hallam; in an ecstasy he is transported over 
sea and land. The spirit leaving "this mortal 
ark," that is, the body, he becomes a mere 
" weight of nerves without a mind," until his 
ecstatic state is dispelled and he resumes his 
normal condition, finding that he has been out 
of the body for an hour. Tennyson's account 
of his own trances, to which it seems he was 
subject from early days, is given in Brother 
Azarias's Essays on In Memoriam in his col- 
lected writings. The account, which was 



36 A Commentary Upon 

prepared for an English physician, will prove 
suggestive to the student of psychology and 
psychic science. 

XIII 

His grief is renewed from day to day, it 
is not tempered or chastened by time, but is 
marked by a perpetual freshness; it is "a 
loss forever new." He does not suffer in a 
dream, like the individual described in the 
first stanza of the section — it is a direful 
reality which he confronts, and he prays that 
he may grasp the terrible significance of the 
truth, and may realize that the approaching 
ship brings no common freight, but *' a van- 
ished life," the precious remains of Hallam. 

XIV 

If he should hear that Hallami was alive 
and had arrived in port, if he should meet 
him and describe the intense grief he had en- 
dured on account of his supposed loss; if 
Hallam should express surprise, as well as 
regret, at his friend's delusion, he being in 
perfect health, " no hint of death," " no touch 
of change," he " should not feel it to be 
strange." The accuracy of the poet's de- 
scription will be confirmed by all who have 
passed through a trial similar to that en- 
countered by him. A striking parallel may 



Tennyson's '^ In Memoriam'^ 37 

be found in Stanley's Life and Letters of Dr. 
Arnold, page 50. Dr Arnold in referring to 
the death of one who had been very dear to 
him says: "It is very extraordinary how 
often I dream that he is alive, and always 
with the consciousness that he is alive after 
having been supposed dead; 'and this has 
sometimes gone so far that I have in my 
dreams questioned the reality of his being 
ahve, and doubted whether it were not a 
dream, and have been convinced that it was 
not, so strongly, that I could hardly shake off 
the impression upon waking." Poe's A 
Dream JVithin a Dream and Coleridge's 
Dream Remembered in a Dream will recur 
to the recollection of the reader. Henry 
Timrod's lines, beginning, " Who first said 
false as dreams," are so full of suggestion 
that they are inserted in complete form. 

" Who first said, * false as dreams ' ? Not one who 
saw 
Into the wild and wondrous world they sway ; 
No thinker who hath read their mystic law; 
No poet who hath weaved them In his lay. 

" Else had he known that through the human breast 
Cross and recross a thousand fleeting gleams, 
That pass unnoticed In the day's unrest, 

Come out at night, like stars, in shining dreams ; 



38 A Commentary Upon 

" That minds too busy or too dull to mark 
The dim suggestion of the noisier hours, 
By dreams in the deep silence of the dark, 

Are roused at midnight with their folded powers. 

" Like that old fount beneath, Dodona's oaks, 
That, dry and voiceless in the garish noon, 
When the calm night arose with modest looks, 
Caught with full wave the sparkle of the moon. 

" If, now and then,, a ghastly shape glide in. 
And fright us with its horrid gloom or glee, 
It is the ghost of some forgotten sin 
We failed to exorcise on bended knee. 

" And that sweet face which only yesternight 

Came to thy solace, dreamer (didst thou read 
The blessing in its eyes of tearful light?) 
Was but the spirit of some gentle deed. 

" Each has its lesson ; for our dreams in sooth. 
Come they in shape of demons, gods, or elves. 
Are allegories with deep hearts of truth 
That tell us solemn secrets of ourselves." 

The seventh stanza of Henry Vaughan's 
Beyond the Veil is- also suggestive in con- 
nection with this phase of our subject: 

" And yet as angels in some brighter dreams 
Call to the soul when man doth sleep: 
So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted 
themes 
And into glory peep," 



Tennyson's ^^ In Memoriam'' 39 

See also Marianna In the South, stanza 
5 — " Dreaming, she knew it was a dream " ; 
and The Two Voices — 

" Who, rowing hard against the stream, 
Saw distant gates of Eden gleam, 
And did not dream It was a dream." 

The slow and painful process of restora- 
tion Is the most acute and severe of all the 
phases of sorrow associated with the death of 
those that have been tenderly and devotedly 
loved. 

XV 

The pervading calm is succeeded by a vio- 
lent tempest, only the conviction that 

" All its motions gently pass 
Athwart a pane of molten glass," 

and that he is shielded from its fury by arti- 
ficial defenses enables him to endure it. The 
calm within is the sustaining power which 
renders him capable of bearing the storm 
without. 

XVI 

He then dwells upon the contrast between 
" calm despair " and " wild unrest." Can 
two such opposing or antithetical mental 



40 A Commentary Upon 

states consist in the same individual? Is sor- 
row a mere changeling? Or does she seem 
to adapt herself to the varying states of calm 
and storm, and to have no more perception of 
even transient form than " some dead lake " 
over which there flits the momentary shadow 
of a lark " hung in the shadow of a heaven " ? 
Or has the shock of Hallam's death so un- 
nerved his faculties that, like some unhappy 
craft, he has lost power of control and direc- 
tion — his self-knowledge and capacity for 
self-guidance dispelled by the violence of the 
blow? Has he become incapable of discrim- 
ination — his sense of continuity destroyed? 

" That delirious man 

Whose fancy fuses old and new, 
And flashes Into false and true, 
And mingles all without a plan." 

XVII 

The ship bearing the remains of Hallam 
has arrived in safety. His prayers for her 
guidance have been answered. The body of 
Hallam was buried in the chancel of St. An- 
drew's Church, Clevedon, wSomersetshire, 
January 3, 1834, amid familiar ancestral 
names and hallowed associations. He in- 
vokes a blessing upon all the future voyages 



Tennyson^ s ^^ In Memoriam^^ 41 

of the ship which had brought the precious 
remains of his friend to his English home. 
In the fourth stanza there is a seeming al- 
lusion to the astrological belief in emanations 
or influences that descend from the heavenly 
bodies and affect the characters and the des- 
tinies of men — a belief often referred to by 
the poets. 

XVIII 

In the first stanza of this section we have 
a notable illustration of a favorite tradition 
or conceit which is availed of by the poets, 
that from the ashes of the dear departed the 
violet springs: See Hamlet, Act V, Scene I, 
lines 220, 221 — 

" Lay her in the earth, 
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh 
May violets spring." 

See also Herrick, Lines Upon Prew, His 
Maid — 

" In this little urn is laid 
Prewdence Baldwin, once my maid, 
From whose happy spark here let 
Spring the purple violet." 

A different, though related phase of this 
conceit — the word being employed in its older 



42 A Commentary Upon 

and nobler significance — reveals itself in the 
poetry of Omar Khayyam as rendered into 
English verse by Tennyson's cherished friend, 
Edward Fitzgerald— '' Old Fitz "— one of 
the most accomplished and devoted students 
of Persian poetry that England has given to 
the world. 

" I sometimes think that never blooms so red 
The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled; 
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears 
Dropt in her lap from some once lovely Head." 
— Rubdiyat, stanza 19. 

The reader of Macaulay will find a con- 
firmation of this belief by referring to his 
History of England, Vol. IV, pages 370, 
371, description of the battle of Landen: 

" The French were victorious ; but they had 
bought their victory dear. More than ten thou- 
sand of the best troops of Louis had fallen. Neer- 
wlnden was a spectacle at which the oldest soldiers 
stood aghast. The streets were piled breast high 
with corpses. . . . The region renowned in 
Europe as the battlefield during many ages of the 
most warlike nations In Europe, has seen only two 
more terrible days, the day of Malplaquet, and the 
day of Waterloo. During many months the ground 
was strewn with skulls and bones of men and horses, 
and with fragments of hats and shoes, saddles and 
holsters. 



Tennyson's ^^ In Memoriam '' 43 

"The next summer, the soil, fertilized by twenty 
thousand corpses, broke forth into millions of pop- 
pies. The traveler who, on the road from Saint 
Tron to Tiremont, saw that vast sheet of rich scar- 
let spreading from Landen to Neerwinden, could 
hardly help fancying that the figurative prediction of 
the Hebrew prophet was literally accomplished, that 
the earth was disclosing her blood, and refusing to 
cover her slain." 

We note that as the poet's thought is un- 
folded in sections 17 and 18, the "calm de- 
spair " and " wild unrest " are beginning to 
disappear before the approach of a more 
normal condition. Arthur's body has been 
laid by " pure hands in English earth," and 
though the poet would if it were possible im- 
part his own life to his friend, the firmer mind 
Is forming, the process of restoration is begun 
— though the charm and Inspiration of the 
past abide in undiminished power. 

XIX 

Arthur Hallam died at Vienna on the Dan- 
ube and his body was burled In Clevedon 
Church near the Wye, which unites with the 
Severn. The dally Inflowing and outflowing 
of the tide, '' making the river silent or vo- 
cal," as the sea flows In or flows back. Is a 
type or symbol of two phases of sorrow, one 



44 A Commentary Upon 

of which It is meet to utter — the other is 
borne in silence. 

XX 

A contrast is drawn between the demon- 
strative and effusive grief of servants who 
have lost a kind master and the " unexpres- 
sive '' sorrow of children who have lost a de- 
voted father. The grief of the former ex- 
pends itself in assertion and asseveration, that 
of the latter lies " too deep for tears." 

XXI 

The poet represents himself as uttering 
his song at the grave of his friend. He is 
censured and reproached, each passerby as- 
signing a different reason or suggesting a 
different motive. One intimates that it is 
mere ostentatious demonstration, a striving 
for the praise of constancy; another charges 
him with selfishness in making the welfare 
of the state subordinate to his personal 
afflictions. Another taunts him with Indiffer- 
ence to the dawning power of physical science 
— we seem to have a prophecy of the revela- 
tions of the spectroscope, and the expanding 
splendor of astronomy, a science In which 
Tennyson was notably accomplished and pro- 
ficient. His outpouring of sorrow Is as un- 



Tennyson's '^ In Memoriam '^ 45 

restralnable as the warble of a bird — he sings 
'' because he must," " and pipes but as the 
linnet sings." 

XXII 

The 2 2d section is a reminiscence of the 
poet's earthly relation to Hallam. Their 
acquaintance had extended over a period of 
five years — 1 828-1 833. They had been as- 
sociated at Trinity College, Cambridge, one 
of the noblest shrines of English culture — 
the college of Bacon, Newton, Dryden, By- 
ron, Macaulay and others who have illus- 
trated and adorned English literature, Eng- 
lish science and English theology. Alfred 
Tennyson and his brother Charles were en- 
tered at Trinity in 1828; another brother, 
Frederick, had already distinguished himself 
at Cambridge by winning the prize for a 
Greek poem. Arthur Hallam entered in Oc- 
tober, 1828. This five years' friendship will 
explain the allusion in stanza 3, *' the fifth 
autumnal slope" — Hallam dying in 1833. It 
need hardly be added that " the shadow 
feared of man " is death. Frederick W. 
Robertson in his Lectures Upon Literature 
and Poetry has some suggestive and admir- 
able criticisms upon this passage and the sec- 
tion which follows it. 



46 A Commentary Upon 

XXIII 

" The shadow cloaked from head to foot 
Who keeps the keys of all the creeds " 

Is, as has been already explained, a personifi- 
cation of death. A contrast is drawn be- 
tween the desolate life of the poet and the 
happy time when he and Hallam lived in 
intimate converse in an almost Arcadian 
world. The fourth stanza may be compared 
with stanza 25 of Browning's Rabbi Ben 
Ezra — 

" Thoughts hardly to be packed 
Into a narrow act, 
Fancies that broke through language and escaped." 

It is evident from the third line of the first 
stanza — 

" Breaking into song by fits " — 

that the poem was evolved from the mind of 
the author at different times and under dif- 
ferent conditions. 

XXIV 
The poet intimates that perhaps his day 
of bliss was not so bright as he had imag- 
ined.* 

♦ Allusion to the astronomical phenomenon, spots on the 
surface of the sun. 

" The very source and fount of day, 
Is dashed with wandering isles of night." 



Tennyson's ^' In Memoriam '' 47 

If all we met were good and fair the world 
would have retained its primal state such as 
it has never had " since our first sun arose 
and set," as the earlier versions read, " since 
Adam left his garden yet." Is it not the 
haze of present grief that sets the past in 
such attractive hues? Or does not its re- 
moteness impart to it an ideal charm of which 
we were unconscious when we moved therein ? 
It is the strong propensity of our nature to 
glorify " the day that is dead." 

"The good old times — 
All times when old are good." 

The virtues of heroes and ancestors gradu- 
ally pass into mythical outline. When even 
the groundwork of objective truth is wanting 
the idealizing spirit constructs the type 
and evolves the character — we have Arthur, 
Lancelot, or Galahad, it may be a Charle- 
magne from whom almost every touch of the 
original has been effaced. This tendency of 
our humanity is singularly illustrated in our 
own day by the expansion of the historical 
novel and the fascination it possesses for the 
most cultured and reflective minds. F. W. 
Robertson has some admirable comments 
upon this last stanza and also Henry Reed 



48 A Commentary Upon 

on the general subject to which it relates in 
his citation of Dr. Arnold's Lectures upon 
Modern History, pages 398, 399. 

XXV 

He declares that the burden of life was 
sustained by the power of sympathetic con- 
verse and congenial association. 

" The track 
Whereon with equal feet they fared " 

was smoothed and tempered by this gracious 
influence. 

XXVI 

The sense of loss does not abate the strong 
affection of the past. No lapse of time, no 
flight of years, can taint its purity, whatever 
the frivolous and the fickle may think in re- 
gard to it. If the eye of infinite wisdom in 
whose contemplation there is neither past nor 
present, none of the limitations of time and 
place — the indispensable conditions of all 
finite thought, which discerns the end from 
the beginning with whom one day is as a 
thousand years and a thousand years as one 
day — should perceive any falling away of 



Tennyson's ^' In Memoriam " 49 

his affection, then ere the rising of the sun, 
" the shadow waiting with the keys," Death 
(see sections 22 and 23) is invoked to shroud 
him from his " proper scorn," the scorn 
which he would properly incur and merit as 
the penalty of his unfaithfulness. 

XXVII 

The very memory of such an affection as 
he had cherished for Hallam is an inspira- 
tion. Keen and acute as the sense of loss may 
be, it purifies rather than destroys the in- 
fluence of a hallowed love — its effect is to 
idealize and sanctify. This general truth is 
enforced by several illustrations. 

The introductory stage of the poem may 
now be regarded as completed. The succeed- 
ing section brings us to the first Christmas 
which occurred after the death of Hallam. 
Thus far the poet has avowed his purpose to 
cherish with unabating tenderness the mem- 
ory of the lost and has given utterance to 
the thought that affection such as " age can 
not wither " is an especial attribute of true 
and noble manhood. 

XXVIII 

It is the first Christmas since Hallam's 
death, December, 1833. The poet's sleep is 



50 A Commentary Upon 

broken, he wakes with pain and almost wishes 
to sleep no more. The Christmas bells are 
ringing in the tidings of peace and good will 
to all mankind. Still, there is a note of joy 
blended with their sorrow, they are not al- 
together " jangled out of tune and harsh," 
for their peals recall and revive the happy 
memories of early days. 

XXIX 

The observance of a Christmas " which 
brings no more a welcome guest " is purely 
formal or ceremonial. Still, regard the form 
— let ancient and hallowed usage be re- 
spected. It too may die. 

XXX 

The halls are dressed with holly-boughs, 
but a shade of gloom which it is impossible 
to banish renders every attempt at merriment 
a cold and lifeless formality. The spirit 
of Hallam is all pervading. It should 
not be forgotten that at this time his body 
had not been laid to rest in English earth, as 
the burial of his remains in Clevedon Church 
did not take place until January 3, 1834. By 
a spontaneous impulse the company abandon 
their mockery of mirth and break into the 
song that follows. The reader will note that 



Tennyson^ s '' In Memoriam ** 51 

the element of faith and hope comes forward 
most gracefully and appropriately, associated 
with the season commemorative of the birth 
of Christ, the supreme object of all faith and 
of all hope. The dead do not change to us — 
they develop new capacities, the keen, ser- 
aphic intelligence pierces " from orb to orb," 
*' from veil to veil" — the affections of their 
past lives, so far from being lost or alienated, 
are purified as well as exalted by the unfold- 
ing of new powers and the awakening of in- 
finite energies. The Christmas song in this 
section should be read in connection with 
Southey's lines elicited by the death of Bishop 
Heber, and of Henry Vaughan's Beyond the 
Veil^ a poem so radiant with sweetness and 
light that we cannot forbear to insert those 
parts of it which are in immediate harmony 
with the subject of this section: 

" They are all gone into the world of light, 
And I alone sit lingering here; 
Their very memory Is fair and bright, 
And my sad thought doth clear. 

" I see them walking In an air of glory, 
Whose light doth trample on my days; 
My days, which are at best but dull and hoary, 
Mere glimmerings and delays. 



52 A Commentary Upon 

" O holy Hope ! and high humility, 
High as the heavens above; 
These are your walks, and you have showed them 
me, 
To kindle my cold love." 

The following lines from Henry TImrod's 
Christmas, descriptive of the condition of a 
well known Southern city during the Civil 
War, and the gloom which prevailed at the 
Christmas-tide, are marked by exquisite grace 
and may be suggestively read In connection 
with the portion of In Memoriam now under 
consideration : 

" How grace this hallowed day? 

Shall happy bells, from yonder ancient spire 
Send their glad greetings to each Christmas fire 
Round which the children play? 

" Alas ! for many a moon. 

That tongueless tower hath cleaved the Sabbath 

air. 
Mute as an obelisk of Ice aglare 
Beneath an Arctic noon. 

" How shall we grace the day? 

With feast and song and dance and antique 

sports, 
And shout of happy children In the courts, 
And tales of ghost and fay? 



Tennyson's '^ In Memoriam^' 53 

" Is there indeed a door, 

Where the old pastimes, with their lawful noise. 
And all the merry round of Christmas joys, 
Could enter as of yore? 

" Would not some pallid face 

Look in upon the banquet, calling up 
Dread shapes of battle in the wassail cup, 
And trouble all the place? " 

See also Miss Christina Rossettl's They 
Desire a Better Country^ especially the 
third stanza. 

XXXI 
Lazarus revealed nothing as to the mystery 
of death. The unseen world Is apprehended 
by faith alone, and the conception of faith as 
an element of tranquillity and serenity Is again 
brought forward. The joy that accompanied 
his resurrection and restoration Is not dimin- 
ished by the fact that an impenetrable mystery 
shrouded the period of his sojourn In the 
grave. Browning's Epistle to Karshish may 
be studied In connection with this section. 

XXXII 

The trusting spirit of Mary Is satisfied in 
the contemplation of her restored brother and 
of the Lord who restored him. Her eyes are 
radiant with the light of silent prayer, her 



54 A Commentary Upon 

faith Is centered upon the supreme object of 
all faith. There is a seeming allusion in stanza 
I to St. John's Gospel, 12:2. 

XXXIII 

Another type of faith is set forth, the 
person addressed being perhaps purely imagi- 
nary, though the error which the poet designs 
to point out and to rebuke is one that has 
been developed repeatedly in the historical 
evolution of philosophy and of theology. 
Tennyson seems sharply to arraign that 
school of thought which to a large extent 
prevailed in Scotland under the auspices of 
Erskine, and in England as an outcome of the 
teachings of Coleridge — the doctrine of an 
inward light, a spiritual illumination which, 
asserting its claims to a special revelation and 
guidance, developed into a subjective type of 
Christianity that tended to ignore, or at least 
to subordinate, its dogmatic and objective 
phases. Let not the simple trust of Mary be 
disturbed by subtle doubt, "shadowed hint,'* 
or philosophic exposition. Let her rest con- 
tent in the possession of Him in whom her 
faith centers, the Incarnate Word "to which 
she links a truth divine." Even superstition, 
if we choose to regard it as such. Is to be pre- 
ferred to absolute unfalth. 



Tennyson^ s '^ In Memoriam'^ 55 
XXXIV 

"Our own dim life" conveys the Intimation 
of immortality; it is Implied In and suggested 
by our consciousness; otherwise all created 
phenomena, all the luxuriance of nature, are 
a mere fantastic beauty, such as lurks In the 
brain of some "wild poet" from whom moral 
perception, ethical aim, has vanished. We 
cannot help suspecting that Tennyson had 
Shelley In mind as the original of this " wild 
poet." Even If we do not admit the existence 
of a conscious purpose, the description as 
applied to Shelley Is a marvel of accuracy and 
of clearness. If we deny the doctrine of im- 
mortality, then what profits God to us ? 

" 'Twere best at once to sink to peace 

Like birds the charming serpent draws, 
To drop head foremost in the jaws, 
Of vacant darkness and to cease." 

XXXV 

Even if some trusted voice from the dead 
were to avow that our belief in immortality 
Is a delusion, would we not endeavor to pro- 
long the delusion. If but for an hour? The 
poet then imagines himself contemplating the 
lamentation that goes up from all nature, the 
whole creation groaning and travailing in pain 



56 A Commentary Upon 

at the mere suggestion that immortality Is a 
delusion. Love seems to echo the mournful 
note: 

" The sound of that forgetful shore 
Will change my sweetness more and more, 
Half-dead to know that I shall die." 

True love must rise above the conception of 
change. It cannot endure the thought of Its 
own decay. If In Its Inception or earliest 
stage of development It had been linked with 
the thought or associated with the possibility 
of forgetfulness or dissolution, it could never 
have risen above the merely satyr or sensual 
form. The essence of pure love, as Lord 
Herbert expressed it, is 

" That it everlasting be." 

See Shakespeare's 11 6th Sonnet. 

The word "iEonlan" In the third stanza is 
not Tennyson's coinage, but was used by 
Abraham Tucker In 1765. See Ionian In the 
New English dictionary. Nor is this by any 
means the only example of Its occurrence in 
the poetry of Tennyson (95 — 1 1 ) . Its mean- 
ing will readily suggest Itself, especially to the 
student of Greek — everlasting, enduring 
throughout the aeons or ages. 



Tennyson's "In Memoriam^' 57 

XXXVI 
However deeply the divine truth — the con- 
ception of God — may be implanted in our 
nature and apprehended by our consciousness, 
we cannot be too grateful to Him who incar- 
nated it in His divine person, in whom the 
Word, the Logos, was ''made flesh and dwelt 
among us" — who rendered it current, fixing it 
in forms of speech that address themselves to 
all degrees of culture, that appeal to all phases 
of intelligence. The world by wisdom knew not 
God. Ancient speculation, dialectic subtlety, 
Platonic idealism — all was merely a feeling 
after the truth If haply It might find it. The 
Incarnation of Christ is not only the central 
truth of the Christian system ; it Is the central 
fact of all history. The appreciation of 
Christ, the proper apprehension of His rank, 
dignity, and splendor, and of the simple but 
consummate truth that the Christian religion 
— as no other form of faith has ever done — 
preeminently centers in and around a personal 
head, is the crowning achievement of our con- 
temporary theology. The teaching embodied 
in this section and In No. 33 has pervaded 
the higher and more reflective literature of our 
time, and has been enlisted In the service of 
schools of thought which stand at the very 
poles of contrast. As an Illustration, the 



58 A Commentary Upon 

reader may consult the closing passage of 
Bishop LIghtfoot's Essay on St. Paul and 
Seneca, and a familiar scene in Thomas 
Hardy's Tess of D^Uhervilles, page 195. 
Fairbarn's Place of Christ in Modern The- 
0/0^}' is full of suggestion in regard to the lead- 
ing truths exhibited in this section.* Tenny- 
son seems again to administer a delicate but 
pointed rebuke to the school of subjective 
Christianity, the theory of an inner light, re- 
ferred to in our exposition of section 33. The 
last line of the third stanza appears especially 
to embody this reproof. 

" And so the Word had breath and wrought 
With human hands the creed of creeds — 
In loveliness of perfect deeds, 
More strong than all poetic thought." 

XXXVII 

The poet is reproached by Urania for pre- 
suming to discuss a subject with which he is 
but dimly acquainted. The faith that he is 
advocating is much more effectively taught in 

* See also Principal Tulloch's Religious Thought in 
Britain During the XlXth Century, page 319. For traces 
of the influence of this portion of the poem, especially 
section 33, Tulloch's lecture on Coleridge and His School, 
as well as that on Religious Thought In Scotland, will 
aid essentially in the interpretation of sections 33 and 36. 



Tennyson* s ''In Memoriam'* 59 

the utterances of nature, In the very whisper 
of the laurel which faintly articulates the 
praises of God. He disclaims any fitness or 
worthiness to handle so high a theme, but at 
the same time avows that his song, despite Its 
feeble art, was the prompting of a strong de- 
sire to soothe and lull his own sorrow — an 
overflow of emotion. The fifth stanza of this 
section, which has been the subject of grave 
animadversion and misapprehension, is 
marked by the most sacred and delicate ten- 
derness. The words of dear ones dead are 
as precious as sacramental wine "to dying 
lips." The student will recall Urania, Para- 
dise Lost, book 7, lines 30-1 ; also Matthew 
Arnold^s Urania and Spenser's Tears of the 
Muses. The "comfort clasped In truth re- 
vealed'' Is to be read In close relation with the 
preceding section — it Is the comfort derived 
from "clasping," laying hold upon the divine 
Logos — the incarnate Word. Urania is the 
heavenly muse; Melpomene, the muse of 
tragedy. 

XXXVIII 

The dawn of spring suggests no thought of 
joy; gloom has settled upon the poet's heart 
again, his life Is a dreary and monotonous 
round; still there Is a gleam of solace In the 



6o A Commentary Upon 

songs to which he is attached, and in the third 
stanza a perceptible advance toward the loved 
one. The blooming of nature after a long 
period of dormant life is an emblem of hope, 
a whisper of consolation. The student will 
remember how prominent a part the annual 
regeneration of nature played in the develop- 
ment of the Greek drama. According to very 
ancient tradition, the spring-tide was the sea- 
son of the creation. See Dante^s Inferno, 
canto I. 

XXXIL 

Despite his melancholy and depression — 
which " the blowing season " does not essen- 
tially modify — there is an intimation of hope 
and cheer in the fact that the yew tree with all 
its ''stubborn hardihood" is not insensible to 
the exhilarating influence of the spring. His 
"random stroke" upon the tree brings off 

"Fruitful cloud and living smoke," 

and at the proper time. 

" Thy gloom is kindled at the tips 
And passes into gloom again." 

" The fact is," says Dr. Gatty — Key to In 
Memoriam, page 43, — "that the flower is 



Tennyson's ^^ In Memoriam** 6i 

bright yellow In color, but very minute; and 
when the tree is shaken the pollen comes off 
like dust, and then the tree seems to resume 
Its old gloom. The yew tree does really blos- 
som and form fruit and seed like other trees, 
though we may not notice It." So the spirit 
of the poet may brighten for a moment, and 
then, like the yew tree, sink back Into its 
wonted gloom. In the Holy Grail this char- 
acteristic of the tree is referred to: 

" O brother, I have seen this yew tree smoke 
Spring after spring for half a hundred years." 

This entire section, which was Inserted in the 
edition of 1869, should be read in relation to 
the second section of the poem. 

XL 

The poet introduces a delicate and graceful 
parallel beween the marriage of a maiden — 
her induction into new offices, responsibilities, 
and pleasures — and the development of his 
friend's capacities in new spheres of activity, 
with this essential and saddening element of 
difference, that the bride — the wife, and per- 
haps the mother — has not severed or dissolved 
her earthly associations, but has enlarged, 
enhanced and made them more sacred — while 



62 A Commentary Upon 

he and Hallam are separated beyond the pos- 
sibility of reunion in this life at least. 

XLI 

Before death took himi, his friend, by his 
ceaseless unfolding of power, the expanding 
purity of his character, seemed to be ripen- 
ing for his change, his translation to nobler 
and holier activities. He deplores the sep- 
aration and the sense of strangeness, but longs 
to overleap all barriers and be at once reunited 
to him. Though not subject unto bondage 
from fear of death, at times — especially in 
the gloomy evening hour — he is conscious of 
a doubt, a vague apprehension that the re- 
union will not take place. Though ever con- 
templating the mystery of his friend's transla- 
tion, his sense of isolation is most painful — he 
feels himself "a life behind." 

XLII 

It was mere unity of place, familiar associa- 
tion and contact, that made him dream him- 
self the peer of Hallam. Still he trusts that 
Place may prevent the dissolution of that 
ancient bond, and that Hallam with broad ex- 
perience and serene wisdom gathered in his 
purer sphere may train to riper growth the 
mind and will of the poet when oneness of 



Tennyson's '' In Memoriam '^ 63 

place shall restore their former converse. 
The concluding stanza in its grace and per- 
fection of touch, as well as its embodiment of 
a profound truth attested by all experience, is 
its own best commentary. 

XLIII 

"If Sleep and Death be truly one," if the 
spirit simply falls into a dreamless slumber, 
there is nothing lost by the separation conse- 
quent upon death. Love will survive in undi- 
minished vigor, its purity untouched, and at 
the spiritual prime "rewaken with the dawn- 
ing soul." , 

XLIV 

In this life the man unfolds and develops, 
his memory of the past becomes dim and faint, 
the days agone in large measure have vanished 
into shadow. Yet at times there is a flash, 
a hint, a reminiscence. So the dead may have 
"some dim touch of earthly things." If this 
supposition be true he invokes his friend to 
speak out freely, "resolve the doubt," if any 
faint or dreamy memory of earthly days and 
associations should come upon him. The 
poet's guardian angel will be glad to enlighten 
him in reference to former friends — their 
fate, condition — and " tell him all." The 



64 A Commentary Upon 

doctrine of guardian spirits with the consola- 
tion and comfort that it implies Is here explic- 
itly avowed and inculcated. 

Wordsworth's ode, Intimations of Immor- 
tality from Recollections of Early Childhood y 
may be read in connection with number 44. 

In the second stanza of this section — 

" The days have vanished, tone and tint, 
And yet perhaps the hoarding sense 
Gives out at times (he knows not whence) 
A little flash, a mystic hint," 

there is a seeming recognition of the doctrine 
of a previous existence, a life that preceded 
the present. This passage might be profit- 
ably compared with Coleridge's sonnet on A 
Journey Homeward; the Author Having Re- 
ceived Intelligence of the Birth of a Son; 
especially the Introductory lines — 

" Oft o'er my brain doth that strange fancy roll. 
Which makes the present (while the flash doth 

last) 
Seem a mere semblance of some unknown past. 
Mixed with such feelings as perplex the soul 
Self-questioned In her sleep : and some have said 
We lived, ere yet this robe of flesh we wore." 

The fourth stanza should be compared with 



Tennyson's '' In Memoriam " 65 

the Ode on the Death of the Duke of Well- 
ington, section 6:58, 59. 

" If aught of things that here befall 
Touch a spirit among things divine." 

Professor Knight's essay on Metempsycho- 
sis, in his Essays in Philosophy, may be profit- 
ably read in connection with this section. 

XLV 

The infant is not conscious of his person- 
ality; experience and association develop in 
him the idea of individuality. 

" So rounds he to a separate mind 
From which clear memory may begin." 

He is separated from others by his physical 
organization, he becomes isolated, and finds — 

" I am not what I see 
And other than the things I touch." 

The material body tends to impress the idea 
of selfhood, and is at the same time the 
symbol as well as the prophecy of a conscious 
individual life which is to succeed our present 
state of existence. Our bodily organization 



66 A Commentary Upon 

would fall of one of its highest and most be- 
neficent purposes if, " beyond the second birth 
of Death," each of us had to recover and re- 
learn his own identity. The lesson inculcated 
in this section is one of the many illustrations 
of that harmony of aim and spirit which 
exists between the teachings of a Christian 
psychology and the revealing, interpretative 
power of the noblest and subtlest poetry. 

XLVI 

In this present life the past is more and 
more shadowed by our progress into the 
future — constant retrospection unnerves us 
for the efficient performance of the duty that 
lies before us. In the heavenly life this con- 
dition of things does not exist, the entire past 
shall be revealed in its unbroken continuity, 
and in clear brilliant light. Of all the 
unfolded past the five years' converse with 
Arthur Hallam, 1 828-1 833, shall prove to 
have been the most fruitful and ennobling, 
despite its narrow and limited range. Love 
in its ideal form is unbounded in warmth or 
intensity and in its power of expansion. 

XLVII 

This section is the consummation, as well 
as the logical outgrowth, of the argument that 



Tennyson's ^' In Memoriam '' 67 

precedes. No finer presentation of the doc- 
trine of personal immortality, personal recog- 
nition after death, the survival of individual 
memories and attachments in another life has 
ever been embodied in uninspired language. 
The reader should note that the entire first 
stanza forms the subject nominative of the 
verb is, the first word of the second — the 
phrase "faith as vague as all unsweet" being 
the predicate of this verb. The superb cli- 
max attained in this section suggests the fol- 
lowing lines from Lord Herbert of Cher- 
bury, who was one of the first to employ the 
In Memoriam stanza with a strong approach 
to the rhythmic grace and golden cadence of 
Tennyson. 

The selection is from an ode entitled Upon 
a Question Whether hove Should Continue 
For Ever, 



O no, beloved! I am most sure 
These virtuous habits we acquire 
As being with the soul entire 

Must with it evermore endure. 



Else should our souls in vain elect, 
And vainer yet were heaven's laws. 
When to an everlasting cause 

They give a perishing effect. 



68 A Commentary Upon 

" Not here on earth then, nor above, 
One good affection can Impair; 
For where God doth admit the fair 
Think you that He excludeth Love? 

" These eyes again thine eyes shall see. 
These hands again thine hand enfold. 
And all chaste blessings can be told 
Shall with us everlasting be. 

" For If no use of sense remain 

When bodies once this life forsake, . 

Or could they no delight partake 
Why should they ever rise again ? 

" And If every Imperfect mind 

Make love the end of knowledge here, 
How perfect will our love be where 
All Imperfection Is refined." 

In Henry Reed's Lectures Upon English 
Literature there are some admirable com- 
ments upon this part of In Memoriam, and 
an outline of the poem In addition. We can- 
not commend these lectures too highly for 
their grace, delicacy, discernment, and spirit- 
ual insight. 

The pantheistic philosophy nowhere en- 
counters a more pointed and effective rebuke 
than Is administered in this section. Even if 
we are to efface our individual consciousness 



Tennyson's " In Memoriam '' 69 

and be absorbed in the general soul — such is 
the teaching of the fourth stanza — let us have 
one more farewell, one final parting ere the 
process of absorption is accomplished and we 
lose ourselves forever in light. 

XLVIII 

The poet intimates that it is not the pur- 
pose of his song to resolve deep questions or 
to unfold grave mysteries. Logical demon- 
stration, dialectic process, is not the mode or 
characteristic of Sorrow. When harsher 
moods are chastened she dispels the shadow 
of doubt by making it tributary to love. It 
is not her province to harrow the sensibilities 
by overwrought description or by too pro- 
longed dwelling upon grief — drawing " the 
deepest measure from the cords." She does 
not trust herself beyond the range of 

" Short swallow-flights of song that dip 
Their wings in tears and skim away." 

XLIX 

In spite of all diverting influences, from art, 
from nature, from the schools, the grief 
abides — ''the sorrow deepens down, the very 
bases of life are drowned in tears." 



yo A Commentary Upon 



The poet invokes the consolation and the 
comfort of his friend's presence in seasons of 
distraction, when the sensuous nature is har- 
rowed with pangs that for the time overcome 
hope and vanquish trust — ^when faith is faint, 
and he approaches 

" The low dark verge of life, 
The twilight of eternal day." 

LI 

The thought suggests itself that if the dead 
were at our side some inward baseness might 
be revealed. He contemplates the possibility 
that Hallam's clear spiritual vision might de- 
tect some "hidden shame" and he "be lessened 
in his love." Yet this morbid reflection is 
counteracted by the thought that the purified 
vision of the dead sees eye to eye and will 
make the broadest allowance for our frailties 
and infirmities. 

LII 

The poet seems incapable of attaining that 
ideal love which he is conscious that he ought 
to cherish toward Hallam if he would recipro- 
cate his affection purely and worthily. The 
spirit of true love is not alienated, however, 
by our imperfect human attachments — no 



Tennyson* s '' In Memor'tam ^' 71 

spirit reaches the Ideal which It sets up and 
for which it strives. Not even the sinless 
years of Christ — the divine exemplar — were 
sufficient to keep the human spirit true to the 
perfect standard which He Inculcated. Re- 
pine not, then, that life Is tainted with sin — 
as the pearl Is sundered from the shell, so all 
imperfection shall be eliminated and the life 
become without spot or blemish — "fleckless.^' 

LIII 

He deprecates an Insidious and pernicious 
teaching, that moral character Is more per- 
fectly matured by giving free play In early 
life to vices and excesses, a sentiment embod- 
ied in the familiar saying, "The greater the 
sinner the greater the saint." "Prove all 
things; hold fast that which is good." The 
teaching here condemned, if carried out to its 
logical result, may become the agent and the 
instrument of satanic power. 

LIV 

Still our trust is unshaken that In the divine 
economy good will be "the final goal of 111"; 
that all events, conditions, created intelli- 
gences, however insignificant or minute, base 
or humble, even our infirmities, sins, vices, 
and pangs will be overruled In infinite wisdom 



72 A Commentary Upon 

to that end. The eighth chapter of the Epis- 
tle to the Romans is a suggestive and stimu- 
lating commentary upon this section. Yet we 
do not know. Like a child in the gloom and 
darkness, we cry for the light, as a cry is our 
only articulate mode of expression. 

LV 
The wish that "no life may fail beyond the 
grave" is a trace of the divine image still lin- 
gering in our humanity. Is there a feud be- 
tween God and nature that she seems so re- 
gardful of the type, so careless of the individ- 
ual life, that in scrutinizing her hidden mean- 
ing we find that of fifty germs she often 
brings but one to maturity? The result of 
this process of reflection is that the poet sur- 
renders himself to the guidance of an im- 
phcit faith, as expressed in the language of 
the two unapproachable stanzas which con- 
clude this section. Arthur H. Clough's lines, 
entitled JVith Whom Is No Variableness, 
Neither Shadow of Turning, may be profit- 
ably and suggestively read in this connection : 

" It fortifies my soul to know 
That, though I perish, truth is so, 
That, howsoe'er I stray and range, 
Whate'er I do, Thou dost not change. 
I steadier step when I recall 
That if I slip, Thou dost not fall." 



Tennyson^ s '' In Memoriam '' 73 

In this section hope and faith seem to 
broaden into a vision of universalism. It 
should be borne in mind, however, that these 
are not dogmatic statements, and they should 
not be understood or interpreted from the 
view-point of dogma. They are the yearn- 
ings of a spirit finely touched for the finest 
issues — that all the ends of the earth would 
come unto God and be saved. This cath- 
olic aspiration is blended with the supreme 
faith embodied in the language of Job, 
'' Though He slay me, yet will I trust in 
Him.^' 

LVI 

Nature avows her indifference, not to the 
type alone, she cares for nothing, "all shall 
go" — a truth attested by the evidence of geo- 
logical strata, in which are found in wanton 
abundance the fossil remains of animals that 
have long since disappeared. The spirit is 
mere breath — spiritus — a purely physical 
force. If this be true, then man is a material 
organism, his spiritual and aesthetic Ideals a 
phantasm, a delusion. The dragons of the 
primeval age were a nobler and more har- 
monious creation. There is, then, no hope In 
this life nor in that which is to come. 



74 A Commentary Upon 

LVII 

" Peace, come away," as Dr. Gatty conjec- 
tures, may be designed for his sister, the 
betrothed of Hallam, whom he now calls 
from the sad theme which his song had been 
discussing in the preceding section. Her 
cheeks are pale with sorrow, they must turn 
their thoughts in another direction, there must 
be some diverting influence — though in doing 
so he leaves half his own life behind. His 
friend, Hallam, is "richly shrined," *'his 
monument shall be this noble verse"; but his 
— the poet's — work will not abide. As long 
as life endures, the tolling of Hallam's pass- 
ing bell will resound in his ears — ''ave" and 
"adieu," "hail" and "farewell," the morning 
and the evening salutation. The parting 
seems final : he Is In the abysmal deeps of woe. 
The reader may compare with the last two 
stanzas of this section the following power- 
ful but ghastly passage from Poe's Lenore: 

" Avaunt, to-night my heart Is light, 
No dirge will I upraise, 
But waft the angel on her flight, 
With a paean of old days. 

" Let no bell toll, lest her sweet soul, 
Amid its hallowed mirth. 
Should catch the note, as it doth float 
Up from the damned earth." 



Tennyson's '^ In Memoriam'^ 75 
LVIII 

Despite the intense gloom pervading his 
song, — which he likens to the echoes of drop- 
ping water in sepulchral vaults or catacombs, 
— he must persevere, as to abandon his task 
at this point would be a useless expenditure 
of force and energy. Urania, "the high 
muse," reproves him: 

" Abide a little longer here 
And thou shalt take a nobler leave," 

a prediction abundantly justified by the event. 

LIX 
This section was inserted In the fourth 
edition of In Memoriam, 1851. It will sug- 
gest an intimate relationship to section 3, 
which begins — 

" O Sorrow, cruel fellowship, 
O Priestess In the vaults of death." 

The poet Invokes the familiar and abiding 
companion, yet his sorrow is not untempered 
by hope. In the third section all nature 
seemed the mere echo of his grief. He has 
advanced beyond that stage, — marked by 
coldness and comfortlessness, — and from the 
contemplation of nature has risen to the con- 



76 A Commentary Upon 

templatlon of God, so that despite his invoca- 
tion of the perpetual fellowship of Sorrow, its 
fierceness is tempered and chastened by faith. 
The first stanza of No. 59 and the second 
stanza of No. 58 explain and complement 
each other. 

LX 

A contrast is suggested between the exalted 
state of his friend and his own lowly condi- 
tion in the present life. The thought is illus- 
trated by the imaginary experience of some 
humble village maiden whose heart is fixed 
upon a lover far beyond her own rank and 
station and endowed with tastes, as well as 
attainments, which rise above the power of 
sympathy or capacity of appreciation. She 
becomes the jest of the neighborhood, her life 
is one of ceaseless humiliation and shame. 
The Lord of Burleigh may be read as a con- 
crete commentary upon this section. 

LXI 

If Hallam in his glorified condition should 
cast a glance back upon the world that he has 
left he might be wounded by the contracted 
life and the imperfect love which is craving 
his affection. Yet it is genuine and pure, de- 
spite its humble measure. The climax is 



Tennyson^ s '^ In Memoriam '^ 77 

reached when the poet declares that '*the soul 
of Shakespeare'' could not adore Hallam 
more ardently than he does. There does not 
seem to be any sufficient reason for assuming 
an Intimate relation between the sonnets of 
Shakespeare and the series of poems of which 
In Memoriam consists, or for supposing that 
Tennyson meant to Imply such a relation by 
his reference to "the soul of Shakespeare" as 
expressing his almost seraphic affection for 
Hallam. The sonnets are the despair of crit- 
icism, they mock at analysis: It cannot be 
proved that they are more than an excursion 
of fancy. In Memoriam Is Intensely personal, 
and In Its essential features, when assiduously 
studied, Intensely lucid. Its relation to the 
sonnets of Shakespeare Is purely formal — It 
might, perhaps, be compared to the Astrophel 
and Stella collection with a nearer approach 
to accuracy and truth: even In that case the 
analogy Is remote. 

LXII 

Yet If Hallam should cast a glance back 
upon the earth and discover that his friend Is 
unworthy of his regard, he would renounce all 
claim to his affection. This reaches the cli- 
max of the unselfish, as the love of Hallam 
is the inspiration of the poet. 



78 A Commentary Upon 

LXIII 

Our feeling of tenderness for the animal 
world does not Interfere with our love for 
dearer and higher Intelligences. It may be 
that the exalted love of the heavenly state 
does not exclude or render Impossible a con- 
tinuance of affection for those who were 
cherished on earth. The argument Is from 
less to greater, and from greater to less. The 
Illustration drawn from the sentiment of kind- 
ness toward the Irrational creation Is espe- 
cially interesting In view of Tennyson's atti- 
tude toward the practice of vivisection, and 
his utterances In regard to It In The Princess^ 
part III, as well as The Children's Hospital. 

LXIV 
The samiC line of thought Is again Illus- 
trated and the same general truth enforced by 
the supposed case of a man of lowly origin 
and humble environment, who by dint of 
energy and force of will has breasted "the 
blows of circumstance" and achieved rank, 
dignity, power. Yet in the flush of his great- 
ness the memory of early days, reminiscences 
of childhood scenes, recollection of a former 
play-fellow — ^who has not risen above the sim- 
ple lot that marked his boyhood, and who 
sometimes wonders if he has retained any 



Tennyson^ s '' In Memoriam '' 79 

resting-place In the mind of his friend of 
high degree — comes over him. 

This passage has been interpreted by more 
than one commentator as an allusion to the 
phenomenal career of Benjamin Disraeli, the 
late Earl of Beaconsfield (i 805-1 881). The 
theory, however, is not borne out by the pas- 
sionless logic of chronology, as Disraeli had 
not become even leader of the House of Com- 
mons, at the date of its composition, and there 
is the strongest reason for believing that 
nearly all of In Memoriam had been written 
in advance of that specific time, 1848. The 
justice or fidelity of the delineation is one of 
those felicitous, though unsought and unde- 
signed, coincidences of which many illustra- 
tions may be cited from the nobler forms of 
romantic and poetic literature. If It be de- 
sired to fix definitely upon a concrete or his- 
toric original for the picture, the life and 
character of Warren Hastings will suggest 
some striking analogies, even In details of 
facts and circumstances. The sobriety of 
this general judgment can be confirmed by a 
careful parallel study of section 64 and of 
Macaulay's essay upon Warren Hastings, 
especially the Introductory sketch of his early 
life, as well as the brilliant summary of his 
achievements and his character, contained In 



8o A Commentary Upon 

the closing pages. Yet we are far from as- 
serting that the ideal statesman of the poet 
had his origin or his inspiration in the life 
and career of the great " pro-consul.'' 

LXV 

Guided by faith he reaches a serener state 
of mind. "Love's too precious to be lost." 
With this reflection he consoles himself and 
finds comfort in song. It is, however, an ad- 
vance upon "the sad mechanic exercise" 
described in section 5, in which "the unquiet 
heart and brain" finds not peace, but mere 
diversion or distraction. 

LXVI 

The influence of faith in working out a re- 
covery is more marked as we proceed. He 
no longer "stiffens from his kind," but enters 
into their pleasures and sympathizes with 
their purposes. The dark shadow does not 
fade away, his "night of loss is always there"; 
but he has passed far beyond the hopeless 
state described in the earlier sections. The 
gradual restorative power of a Christian faith 
has never been unfolded with more delicacy 
of feeling, subtlety of touch, and grace of ex- 
pression. 



Tennyson* s ^^ In Memoriam '* 8 1 

LXVII 
The process of recovery, under the inspira- 
tion of faith, is so far advanced that in the 
night hours he can think tranquilly even of 
Hallam's grave, and dwell upon it with a 
tenderness and calmness that indicate a 
strong contrast to the seeming despair of the 
previous stages of the poem. The " broad 
water of the west " refers to the Bristol Chan- 
nel, near which the church at Clevedon is 
situated. 

LXVIII 
The poet dreams of his friend as alive, an 
experience by no means unfamiliar to those 
who even in sleep cannot cast off the burden 
of a great sorrow. (See Stanley's Life and 
Letters of Dr. Arnold, page 50.) His friend 
seems to have undergone some transforma- 
tion, there is a nameless sadness reflected in 
his face as they frequent their ancient haunts. 
With the dawn of day he discovers that his 
own Imagination had drawn the portrait of 
Hallam; the picture is purely subjective. The 
representation of Death as the brother of 
Sleep Is a favorite image with the poets of the 
ancient and the modern world. The student 
of art history will recall the controversy of 
Lessing with Winckelman and Klotz, In 
which LessIng demonstrated that the ancient 



82 A Commentary Upon 

fashion of representing Death was not by a 
skeleton, — a hideous mode which he showed 
to be of medieval origin, — but as the brother 
of Sleep. Numerous passages from the past 
ages of our poetry will suggest themselves — 
such, for example, as Shelley's well known 
lines — 

" How wonderful Is sleep, 
Sleep, and his brother Death." 

Daniel's 51st sonnet to Delia — 

" Care charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes, 
Brother to Death, sweetly dispose thyself." 

Fletcher's Valentinian — Invocation To 
Sleep — 

" Care charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes, 
Brother to Death, sweetly dispose thyself." 

From Sackville, author of The Induction 
To The Mirror For Magistrates, poem en- 
titled Sleep — 

" By him lay heavy Sleep, the cousin of Death, 
Flat on the ground, and still as any stone." 

Other examples may be gathered from 
Shakespeare and Sir Thomas Browne. 

LXIX 
The poet unfolds another troubled dream, 



Tennyson^ s '' In Memoriam '^ 83 

and the strange experiences he encountered in 
Imagination — scoffs and derision. At last he 
finds an angel with gentle voice and cheering 
look, who by a seeming touch transformed his 
ctown of thorns into a leaf. See King Henry 
Fill, Act. IV, Scene 2, The Vision. 

LXX 

He is troubled with strange appearances, 
grotesque features, ghostly structures — in 
short, a dream-world; he cannot see Hallam's 
face, except dimly, — " the hues are faint *' — 
until suddenly It is revealed In Its Integrity 
and purity by no conscious exercise of will. 

LXXI 

The unity of sleep and death Is again re- 
ferred to. Sleep and Illusions common to It 
have fabricated a picture of a journey through 
"Summer France" with Hallam in 1830: 
the past Is lived over In dreams, which as- 
sume a more pleasurable character, save a 
vague consciousness of wrong which he would 
fain have dispelled, " that so his joy may be 
full." In dreams he revives familiar memo- 
ries and frequents the wonted haunts of days 
agone. Tennyson's In the Valley of Cauteretz 
should be read In connection with this section. 



84 A Commentary Upon 

LXXII 
The next section introduces the first anni- 
versary of Hallam's death, September 15, 
1834, so rich in painful memories. Its ad- 
vent seems for a time to arrest the tranquil 
flow of the poet's mind as, guided by faith, 
it was recovering its normal state. 

LXXIII 

He deplores the death of Hallam — as it 
found his powers just dawning — a young Ly- 
cidas who died before his prime and " hath 
not left his peer." All contemporary accounts 
of Hallam bear out fully the splendid tributes 
which Tennyson pays to the brilliance of his 
genius and the loveliness of his character. 
Mr. Gladstone said of him, " It has pleased 
God that in his death, as well as in his life 
and nature, he should be marked beyond ordi- 
nary men." The first stanza of this section, 
beginning, 

" So many worlds, so much to do, 
So little done, such things to be," 

may be compared with the language of 
Browning In The Last Ride Together: 

" Look at the end of work — contrast 
The petty done, the undone vast." 



Tennyson's '^ In Memoriam'^ 85 

He seeks consolation in the thought that 
the result abides with God, and that the glori- 
fied spirit will find the amplest field for the 
exercise of his expanding powers in new 
spheres of development. The phantom of 
earthly fame — which produces an exaltation 
of self, an absorption into self, subversive of 
the noblest and highest achievement — will 
fade away; but the triumphant soul will carry 
its unexpended faculties and powers into its 
new field, consecrating them to even purer and 
ampler ends, and preserving 

" The large results 
Of force that would have forged a name," 

that is, would have been devoted to the mere 
attainment of transient human renown. 

LXXIV 

The first stanza of this section may be com- 
pared with Macbeth, Scene II, Act II, 18, 19. 
As in the faces of the dead likenesses never 
apparent during life are sometimes revealed, 
so after the death of Hallam his kinship with 
the great and good is more clearly perceived 
than during life. Sir Thomas Browne, in 
his Letters to a Friend^ comments upon this 



86 A Commentary Upon 

peculiarity, saying of some one recently de- 
ceased, that " he lost his own face and looked 
like one of his near relations, for he main- 
tained not his proper countenance, but looked 
like his uncle." See also Poe's Fall of the 
House of Usher, for striking references to 
this same characteristic of the features of the 
dead. 

LXXV 

He does not undertake to accord the full 
meed of praise to Hallam. The depth of his 
sorrow is the only true standard by which to 
estimate the greatness of his hero. Eulogy is 
speedily forgotten — his friend was upon the 
mere threshold of his powers but tributes and 
prophecies as to his prospective glory would 
fall coldly upon the ear of the world, which 
has regard simply to accomplished results, not 
to potentialities or possibilities. So he deter- 
mines to shroud his friend's name with the 
sanctity of silence. Milton's lines upon fame, 
Lycidas, 70-84, may be profitably read in re- 
lation to this section. 

LXXVI 

He transports himself in imagination to 
some point at which the starry heavens of 
space are revealed at a glance, *' sharpened to 



Tennyson's ^^ In Memoriam'' 87 

a needle's end," * and compares the ephem- 
eral character of the noblest human song with 
that which achieves abiding renown. The 
mightiest lays are dumb and faded out of 
memory before a yew tree moulders, and 
though the writings of '' the great early 
poets/' such as Homer or Job, " the matin 
songs that wake the darkness of our planet," 
may resist decay, our best modern and con- 
temporary creations in verse will have faded 
into shadow in half a century — by the time 
that the oak withers they will have long 
been forgotten except by the plodding anti- 
quary or the assiduous reviver of reputa- 
tions that have fallen into occupation or 
eclipse. 

LXXVII 

He is aware that his poems may enjoy a 
merely fleeting life, and may serve even igno- 
ble ends, or for purposes of adornment. Hun- 
dreds of plays and poems in manuscript 
have been appropriated by pastry-cooks or 
used to kindle fires. Still, his song is the 
spontaneous outburst of his love and consti- 

* Compare with the first stanza of this section the fol- 
lowing from Cymbeline, one of Tennyson's favorite plays, 
Act V, Scene III: 

" Till the diminution of space had pointed him sharp as my 
needle." 



88 A Commentary Upon 

tutes its own justification. It is not renown 
he craves. Compare section 21, stanza 6. 
The student may read in connection with this 
section Dean Swift's Poem on The Death of 
Dr. Swift. Despite its morbid tone, it has a 
strong element of truth and fact. 

LXXVIII 

We now approach the second Christmas- 
tide which has occurred since Hallam's 
death. The formalities and the unrestrained 
expression of grief have disappeared with the 
flight of years, the characteristic games and 
sports are observed — still, 

" Over all things brooding slept 
The quiet sense of something lost." 

The festivities are conventional only, a de- 
corous calmness veiling an invincible grief. 

LXXIX 

In the superb tribute here offered to Hal- 
lam's memory the poet introduces a delicate 
and graceful apology to his brother, Rev. 
Charles Tennyson Turner, who was asso- 
ciated with Alfred in the publication of the 
Poems By Two Brothers, 1827. Sir Francis 
Doyle, in his Reminiscences, has an entertain^ 



Tennyson's '^ In Memoriam '^ 89 

Ing sketch of Frederick Tennyson, an elder 
brother of Charles and Alfred, who was his 
schoolmate at Eton. The poet does not mean 
to imply any lack of brotherly devotion, but 
simply intimates that the points of contrast 
between himself and Hallam " supplied his 
wants the more " — Hallam being strong when 
he was weak; whereas, he and his brother are 

" One in kind 
As moulded like in nature's mint, 
And hill and wood and field did print 
The same sweet forms in either mind." 

In section 9, stanza 4, he had spoken of 
Hallam as my friend, the brother of my love. 
See Tennyson's Prefatory Poem to His 
Brothe/s Sonnets. 

LXXX 

The poet is assured that had he died in- 
stead of Hallam, his friend would have 
found consolation in '' having stayed in peace 
with God and man," seeking his comfort in 
pious resignation to the divine will. He 
therefore determines to imitate his example 
in the inverted relations as he has conceived 
them, and obtains consolation. 



90 A Commentary Upon 

LXXXI 

If the poet had imagined during Hallam's 
life that his love for him (Hallam) was in- 
capable of further development, in other 
words, had reached perfection, the Spirit of 
Love would have suggested that his affection 
for his friend would ripen more and more. 
Death replies, however, that Arthur's sud- 
den removal gives an immediate maturity to 
their love : what would have been In this life 
a gradual development, became an instan- 
taneous result in the life to which Hallam's 
dawning capabilities had been transferred. 

LXXXII 

The poet does not " wage any feud " with 
death " because of Hallam's removal — he 
knows that his powers will unfold in his new 
sphere. It is the longing for personal com- 
munion, the unrestralnable yearning of the 
human heart for converse with those whom 
It has lost. This sentiment Is characteristic 
of that phase of the poem, which is introduced 
by the second Christmas-tide succeeding Hal- 
lam's death. 

LXXXIII 

The New Year is issued in with an almost 
triumphant strain, the gloom of the past is 



Tennyson's '^ In Memoriam'^ 91 

dissolving as the mind of the poet is more 
and more possessed by the spirit of faith. 

LXXXIV 

We have in this section a splendid vision 
of Hallam. in his maturity as it revealed itself 
to the prophetic eye of his friend. All the 
full-blown grace of domestic and social life, 
as well as the charm of literary eminence, is 
delineated, the consummation being reached 
in the reunion and blending of two souls into 
one. Yet the brilliant dream dissolves, and 
the ancient sorrow rekindles. The contem- 
plated marriage of Arthur Hallam to the 
sister of Alfred Tennyson will explain the 
tender and delicate allusions in stanzas 2, 3, 
4, 5, and 6 of this section. The eleventh 
stanza will recall one of the noblest and most 
powerful scenes in Shakespeare. See Henry 
F, Act IV, Scene VI, 7-19. 

" In which array, brave soldier, doth he lie, 
Larding the plain ; and by his bloody side. 
Yoke-fellow to his honour-owing wounds, 
The noble Earl of Suffolk also lies. 
Suffolk first died ; and York all haggled over. 
Comes to him, where in gore he lay insteeped, 
And takes him by the beard, kisses the gashes 
That bloodily did yawn upon his face, 
And cries aloud, * Tarry, dear cousin Suffolk, 



92 A Commentary Upon 

My soul shall keep thine company to heaven; 
Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly abreast. 
As in this glorious and well-foughten field 
We kept together in our chivalry.' " 

LXXXV 

Then occur again the famihar lines, so 
nearly approached by Arthur Clough in his 
Peschiera and Alteram Partem, which re- 
quire no explanation. At this point one ap- 
pears of whom we shall hear more In the 
later stages of the poem. It is evident that 
he wishes to sustain the same relation to a 
sister of the poet, which Arthur Hallam had 
occupied, and as a consequence the same at- 
titude toward Tennyson that Hallam had 
maintained. This new phase of the situation 
naturally suggests the question, whether the 
poet's " capabilities of love '' have been ex- 
hausted In his devotion to Hallam. The 
student will note that the participle " de- 
manding '* In stanza 2, line 2, of this section, 
has as Its object the two last lines of the 
stanza In which It occurs, and all of the suc- 
ceeding stanza. Then follows the answer of 
the poet to the question suggested by this in- 
terrogator, who Is Introduced for the first 
time. The poet admits the propriety of the 
question and the necessity of a faithful 



Tennyson^ s '' In Memoriam '* 93 

answer. He then describes the tranquil flow 
of his own life, 

" Till on mine ear this message falls, 
That in Vienna's fatal walls, 
God's finger touched him and he slept " — 

a reference to Hallam's sudden death in Vi- 
enna. Then follows the superb description 
of Hallam's reception by 

" The great intelligences fair 
That range above our mortal state " 

who led him from glory to glory, and showed 
him in their primal freshness all knowledge 
and all wisdom which the sons of men shall 
accumulate during the unfolding of the ages. 
He laments his own dimmed hopes, isolated 
from Hallam and left to wander in a world 
"where all things round him" are a perpetual 
reminder. His influence is not diminished by 
his removal — it is ceaselessly active. The in- 
spiration of his example and his own hand- 
ling of spiritual mysteries have tempered the 
shock of grief by diffusing it throughout the 
entire life ; its violence has been mitigated by 
extension, and its present fierceness dimin- 
ished. His heart is therefore able to go out 
toward other friends whom ''once he met"; 



94 A Commentary Upon 

he does not permit his sorrow for the dead to 
destroy his sympathy for the living. Yet de- 
spite the sincerity of his new friendship, every 
touch of nature recalls his love for Hallam, 
" his old affection of the tomb." Still, from 
the grave the voice of Arthur seems to urge 
him to form new ties — " a friendship for the 
years to come." He admits that if his love 
for his prospective brother-in-law have not 
the freshness which marked the first attach- 
ment, it is at least pure and genuine. Then 
follows an exquisite and delicate comparison 
which is sufficient to confer a new glory upon 
this darling flower of the poets — the prim- 
rose — almost equal to that which Milton's 
classic line in Lycidas, 142, had previously 
bestowed. 

LXXXVI 

The concluding events of the poems, which 
are distinctly foreshadowed in the earlier part 
of this section, are solemnized and confirmed 
by a song, continuous in thought and un- 
broken in structure, a prolonged and single 
strain, in which the soothing agencies of 
Nature are Invoked to impart calmness and 
serenity, dispelling doubt, and allowing his 
imagination to soar to the rising star in which 
" a hundred spirits whisper Peace." 



Tennyson's ^' In Memoriam" 95 
LXXXVII 

The poet revisits Trinity College, Cam- 
bridge, where he and Hallam had been edu- 
cated — Tennyson entering in 1828, Hallam 
in 1829. All the old associations are re- 
vived, but their rekindling seems not so much 
a cause of renewed grief as a pleasing mem- 
ory of " the days that are no more."* He 
comments with enthusiastic pride upon the 
wonderful versatility of Hallam's endow- 
ments and accomplishments. An account of 
his gifts as a debater and as master of style 
may be found in Sir Francis Doyle's Reminis- 
cences. 

Trinity College, Cambridge, is one of the 
noblest shrines of university culture. Mil- 
ton's reminiscences of his own Cambridge as- 
sociation with Edward King, the shadowy 
hero who flits across the surface of Lycidas 
like a transient form, and Cowley's elegy in 
honor of Mr. Hervey, whose name and mem- 
ory are also linked with academic life in the 
same university, are naturally recalled by this 
description. A single stanza of this latter 
poem has engrafted itself upon our language, 
and will preserve in some faint measure the 
renown of its author despite the judgment 

* Compare with this section, Tennyson's Poem to the 
Rev. W. H. Brookfield. 



g6 A Commentary Upon 

long ago pronounced upon him by Pope, the 
supreme arbiter of poetic reputations In our 
Augustan age: 

" Say, for ye saw us, ye Immortal lights. 

How oft unwearied have we spent the nights? 
Till the Ledean stars, so famed for love, 
Wondered at us from above. 
We spent them not in toys, and lusts, or wine; 
But search of deep philosophy, 
Wit, eloquence and poetry, 

Arts which I loved, for they, my friend, were 
thine." 

The allusion In the last stanza of this sec- 
tion to " the bar of Michael Angelo '' is ex- 
plained by the fact that Hallam's brow was 
projecting and prominent, a characteristic 
feature of men marked by Intellectual power. 
Michael Angelo was distinguished "by a 
strong bar of bone over his eyes." 

The closing line of the ninth stanza Is an 
evident allusion to the Acts of the Apostles, 
chapter 6, verse 15.* 

LXXXVIII 
In the song of the nightingale, and in his 
own preluding notes, joy is the dominant 

* The rooms occupied by Arthur Hallam while a student 
at Trinity College, Cambridge, were in New Court; those 
of Tennyson in Corpus Building, opposite the Bull Hotel. 



Tennyson's ^' In Memoriam '' 97 

strain. The bird exults in the " budded 
quicks," that is, budded or developing life of 
spring, — compare " the quick and the dead "; 
in " the darkening leaf " its brooding heart 
can still cherish a " secret joy," — though Its 
exultant note is hushed. In popular tradi- 
tion the song of the nightingale is regarded 
as presaging both good and evil. See Miss 
Christina Rossetti's Bird Raptures, stanza 3. 
It has been with the lark, the darling bird of 
the poets for ages. Allusions without num- 
ber may be cited from Sophocles to our own 
time. 

LXXXIX 

This section is rich in memories of happy 
days spent at Somersby in Lincolnshire, the 
birth-place of Tennyson, and his home until 
several years after the death of his father, 
which occurred in 1831. Arthur Hallam 
and the poet's sister Emily are prominent 
figures in this delightful picture. Hallam, 
who was a member of the legal profession, is 
represented as escaping from the '' dusty pur- 
lieus of the law " to the congenial associa- 
tions and surroundings of his friend's Lin- 
colnshire home. The poet and Hallam, with 
their goodly circle of congenial companions, 
discuss the current themes of the day — ^per- 



98 A Commentary Upon 

haps the great reform bill of 1832 being 
specifically referred to as one of the essential 
" changes of the state "; or tracked " sugges- 
tion to her inmost cell " in analyzing some 
philosophical theory in the Socratic manner. 
What the Socratic method was is elaborately 
explained in Grote's History of Greece, Vol- 
ume VIII, Chapter LXVIII. It seems to 
have been Hallam's opinion that the attri- 
tion and contact of city life had a tendency 
to efface what is distinctive and individual in 
human character — " to grind down men^s 
minds to a pale unanimity," to merge in mere 
conventional form and gloss " the picturesque 
of man and man." 

Hallam's fondness for the " Tuscan 
poets " and Emily's skill in playing the harp 
are among the charming features of these 
Somersby reminiscences. We have a de- 
scription of a picnic party; the day's pleasures 
are over and the return home is accomplished 

" Before the crimson circled star 
Had fallen into her father's grave " — 

an apparent allusion to the setting of Venus 
when she is the evening star. As she de- 
scends toward the level of the sea she is 
girdled with a halo of crimson light. To 



Tennyson's '' In Memoriam *' 99 

one near the sea the planet appears to fall 
into It — '' her father's grave " — in accord- 
ance with the ancient and widely diffused 
myth which represents Aphrodite or Venus 
as springing from the union of the foam and 
Chronos, whose mutilated body was cast into 
its waters. We have, however, the poet's 
own assurance that it is an astronomical, not 
a mythological, phenomenon that he is de- 
scribing. 

xc 

He treats as almost impious the suggestion 
that were the dead restored to life they would 
return '' like ghosts to trouble joy " and meet 
no kindly welcome. Still, if they should re- 
turn they would find their earthly alliances 
and relations transformed and their worldly 
estates passed into hard and unrelaxing 
hands. Even if this gloomy vision were re- 
alized 

" I find not yet one lonely thought 
That cries against my wish for thee." 

XCI 

With the dawn of spring — suggestive and 
symbolical of reviving happiness — he appeals 
to Hallam to manifest himself as he appeared 



100 A Commentary Upon 

on earth. When spring has yielded to the 
matured splendor of summer he is invoked 
to reveal himself in his glorified and celestial 
state — 

" Beauteous in thine after form, 
And like a finer light in light." 

XCII 

The mere vision of his dead friend would 
not satisfy his longing. Even if his ghost 
were to reveal some future event, even if the 
future proved the warning to be trustworthy, 
still, his heart yearning would not cease — he 
would regard it only as a presentiment — 

" Such refraction of events 
As often rises ere they rise." 

The " refraction " here alluded to is a 
well known phenomenon and is one of the 
many illustrations of Tennyson's critical 
acquaintance with the science of astronomy. 

XCIII 

It is not impossible that the spirits of the 
dear departed do revisit the scenes familiar 
to them during their earthly life — " no visual 
shade," but the spirits themselves as discerned 



Tennyson's ** In Memoriam'' loi 

by the spiritual eye. As this longing of the 
human heart for even a temporary vision of 
the dead may be gratified, he appeals to the 
shade of Hallam to " descend and touch and 
enter." Hear 

" The wish too strong for words to name 
That In the blindness of the frame 
My Ghost may feel that thine is near." 

Wordsworth's noble and touching poem, 
Laodamia, may be appropriately read in this 
connection. 

xciv 

No more delicate and appreciative com- 
ment upon this section than that of Henry 
Reed, Lectures Upon English Literature, 
pages 325, 326, has ever been written. The 
high and holy privilege of communing with 
the glorified and celestial dead Is reserved for 
those and for those alone who are In perfect 
harmony with God and men, who are en- 
dowed with " that greatest of all earthly dig- 
nities, a calm and quiet conscience," whose 
spiritual vision Is clarified — 

" Who feel through all this earthly dress 
Bright shoots of everlastingness." 



I02 A Commentary Upon 

If such an Ideal type of character were to be 
found In this present life, there Is no reason 
to doubt that those who had attained It, and 
were Its concrete Illustrations, could hold pure 
and ennobling converse with the spirits of the 
saintly dead. The difficulty Is subjective — 
that Is, In ourselves, not In the dead. 

xcv 

It Is " a beauteous evening, calm and free " : 
the character of the surroundings Is propitious 
to the line of thought In which he has been 
Indulging. A circle of friends, after the 
pleasures and Incidents of the day, separate 
for the night and the poet Is left alone. 
Nature Is In her loveliest mood — symbolical 
of peace, typical of rest, prophetic of hope. 
The old yearning for Arthur seizes him; he 
reads over his letters, letters marked by that 
strong Individuality characteristic of their 
author, full of suggestion, keen analysis — 
stimulating, quickening thought. His remi- 
niscences become so Intense, his Impressions 
so graphic, that all at once Hallam's soul 
seems flashed upon him. In a state of trance 
he Is caught up Into the empyrean heights of 
thought, he seems to confront the " eternal 
verities, the Immensities '' — his trance Is dis- 
pelled; but neither language can reproduce 



Tennyson's ^^ In Memoriam'' 103 

nor Intellect apprehend through the exercise 
of the representative faculty that which he 
for the time became : 

" Thoughts hardly to be packed 
Into a narrow act, 
Fancies that broke through language and escaped." 

Compare with this part of the 95th section 
the 9th stanza of Rossettl's Blessed Damozel. 
With the advent of dawn his normal state 
is resumed, when 

" East and West without a breath, 
MIxt their dim lights like life and death 
To broaden into boundless day." 

Some suggestive and stimulating questions 
are discussed by F. W. H. Myers in his Essay 
on Science and a Future Life, which may be 
read to advantage in connection with the de- 
scription of the poet's trance contained in 
section 95. 

XCVI 

The allusion to *' sweet hearted — you 
whose light blue eyes/' etc., is possibly meant 
for Tennyson's sister, who had been be- 
trothed to Hallam. Her pity even for flies 
is noted : it will be remembered that the same 



I04 A Commentary Upon 

kindly feeling for the Irrational creation Is 
ascribed to Chaucer's gentle and decorous 
Prioress, one of the first clearly drawn and 
abiding female characters In our classic lit- 
erature. The suggestion that '' doubt Is 
devil born " elicits the memorable and much 
contested reply: 

" There lies more faith in honest doubt, 
Believe me, than in half the creeds " — 

an utterance which may be compared with 
Rabbi Ben Ezra, III — 

" Rather I prize the doubt 
Low kinds exist without, 
Finite and finished clods, untroubled by a spark." 

It seems clear, however, that the doubt 
contemplated by the poet Is not the cold, 
withering cavil of the agnostic, nor the chill- 
ing negation of a materialistic philosophy. 
The emphasis Is properly upon the word hon- 
est, and the attitude of mind and heart meant 
to be described Is one that Is feeling after the 
truth, If haply It may find It. It Is a condi- 
tion that rather prompts and suggests the cry, 
" Lord, I believe : help Thou mine unbelief," 
than one which loses Itself In abysmal deeps 
of unfalth and despair. The personal ex- 



Tennyson's "In Memoriam^' 105 

perlence of Hallam is appealed to in confir- 
mation of the seeming heterodoxy implied in 
this bold assertion. He faced every phan- 
tom of the mind, every suggestion of the 
tempter, emerging purified and more than con- 
queror from the struggle. This superb de- 
scription is not a mere creation of poetic 
fancy, but a faithful and accurate represen- 
tation of the spiritual conflicts through which 
Hallam passed. The closing lines of the 
fifth stanza of this section are an evident allu- 
sion to the 139th Psalm, verses 11 and 12. 

XCVII 

The allusion in the first stanza — " his own 
vast shadow glory crowned " — is suggested 
by the famous Brocken in the Hartz Moun- 
tains of Germany. See '' Mirage " in Cham- 
bers' Cyclopedia, or any similar work. 

Personal love may continue, despite sep- 
aration and distance. This is Illustrated by 
the example of a married couple — the wife 
has loved and her love has been reciprocated. 
When her husband's absorption and distrac- 
tion prevent or repress the manifestation of 
his affection she is still confident that it re- 
mains unabated, and cherishes with undimln- 
Ishing tenderness the faded tokens that recall 
the day of her delight. Allingham's lines, A 



io6 A Commentary Upon 

Wife, may be suggestively read In connection 
with this section. 

XCVIII 

Vienna is described — the city so rich in 
painful memories. It breaks in upon the 
poet's serenity like a discordant note. All its 
brilliancy seems a mere flickering light, for 
his friend died there. 

" No livelier than the wisp that gleams 
On Lethe in the eyes of Death " — 

as faint as the feeble flash of recollection that 
for a moment illumines the fading memory of 
the dead. The " park " referred to in this 
section, whose festivities and amusements are 
described with such minuteness, is probably 
the "Prater" alluded to in Faust, part i, 
scene xxi, which the Emperor Joseph II 
dedicated " to the Human Race." 

XCIX 

The second anniversary of Hallam's death, 
September 15, 1835. ^ serener tone pre- 
vails than is characteristic of the first anni- 
versary — section 72. It is ushered in, not by 
tempest, but by calm. Its associations are 
principally of place; those of the preceding 



Tennyson^ s ^^ In Memoriam" 107 

were of time — '' the dolorous hour." We 
note also the expanding of the poet's sym- 
pathies, especially In the last stanza of the 
section. 



He Is about to leave the place of his birth, 
and the scenes of his early days, 1837, 
which cluster around Somersby, In Lincoln- 
shire. All Its surroundings suggest recollec- 
tions of Hallam, and the contemplated de- 
parture seems as If he had died again. The 
law of association Is minutely and gracefully 
applied — there Is no natural feature or famil- 
iar spot that does not rekindle " some gra- 
cious memory of his friend." 

CI 

The sacredness attaching to these hallowed 
associations will fade away from his memory, 
strangers will come Into possession, and thus 
the sense of local affection will be perpetu- 
ated by others as It Is gradually developed by 
them. 

CII 

Recollections of happy days passed In the 
home of his childhood mingle with memories 
of Hallam, until they blend into each other 



io8 A Commentary Upon 

and mournful reminiscences are succeeded by 
" one pure image of regret.** 

cm 

On the last night spent in the home of his 
early days he dreams a vision of the dead 
which leaves him tranquil and content in re- 
gard to the future. The vision is then un- 
folded, and when Hallam is revealed in his 
glorified state ready to greet him, they enter 
a great ship 

"And steer her towards a crimson cloud, 
That landlike slept along the deep." 

In the chant of the maidens, who are symbols 
of the Muses, the Arts, etc., there is a proph- 
ecy of the future to be revealed, when wars 
should cease and the " coming race " enter 
into possession of the earth, a prophecy 
which forms an appropriate prelude to the 
triumphant note soon to be uttered in section 
1 06. The closing lines of Miss Christina 
Rossetti's Ballad of Boding should be read 
in connection with this division of the poem. 

CIV 

The third Christmas-tide observed since 
Hallam's death — the three Christmas seasons 



I 



Tennyson's '^ In Memoriam" 109 

occurring In the poem not being continuous. 
The old home in Lincolnshire is broken up, 
the novelty and the strangeness of the sur- 
roundings are not propitious to Christmas 
cheer. The Tennyson family was now liv- 
ing in Essex, and the church referred to is 
Waltham Abbey Church, around which so 
many historic associations cluster. The 
three Christmas-tides commemorated in the 
poem are 1833, 1834, 1837. 

cv 

Changes of place, new associations, have 
dispelled the charm of Christmas observance; 
still, the spiritual aspects of the season have 
risen above its mere formal commemoration. 
In the poet's magnificent prophecy, " the 
closing cycle rich in good," is the consum- 
mation of which Christmas is merely the em- 
blem and the foreshadowing. 

CVI 

Then follows the millennial anthem — which 
has long since grafted itself upon the heart 
of English speech and has become part of the 
religious consciousness of our race. " Age 
cannot wither It," exegesis or interpretation 
would mar Its grace. The song sets Itself to 



no A Commentary Upon 

the thought toward which the poem has been 
steadily developing : 

" Like perfect music unto noble words." 

No poetical creation of our time has more 
thoroughly wrought itself into the conscious- 
ness of our language. A notable illustration 
of this truth is the influence of its metre and 
its teaching traceable in the lines of Charles 
Kingsley, On the Death of a Certain Journal, 
1852, especially the fourth and fifth stanzas: 

" To grace, perchance, a fairer morn 
In mightier lands beyond the sea, 
While honor falls to such as me 
From hearts of heroes yet unborn. 

" Who in the light of fuller day. 
Of purer science, holier laws. 
Bless us, faint heralds of their cause. 
Dim beacons of their glorious way." 

All that is purest and most ideal in our 
complex modern life, with its unrestful 
energy, finds utterance here — the struggle 
fierce and unabating. 

CVII 

February first, Hallam's birthday. It is 
observed with " festal cheer," another indi- 



Tennyson's '' In Memoriam '' 1 1 1 

cation of reviving hope and faith which tri- 
umphs over the harsh and austere attitude of 
nature, against colossal greed and selfishness, 
against the spirit of feudal exaction still lin- 
gering In the heart of contemporary political 
life. The evolution of the race toward 
nobleness of nature, purity of laws, gentle- 
ness of manners proceeds as the slowly mov- 
ing ages are more and more pervaded by the 
spirit of the " strong son of God, the Christ 
that is to be." The characteristic of modern 
theological development, even as viewed 
from widely diverging schools of thought, Is 
not to a formal or mechanical unity, but to 
a harmony which is based upon an expanding 
apprehension of the nature and work of 
Christ. All the highest and purest " streams 
of tendency " in contemporary Christian de- 
velopment pervade it and find adequate ex- 
pression. In Memoriam might be described 
as the anthem of broad and ideal Christi- 
anity. Perhaps no creation of contemporary 
literature more admirably Illustrates Mat- 
thew Arnold's judgment in regard to the 
" immense future " in reserve for poetry. 

CVIII 

He determines no longer to Isolate himself 
from his kind, but rather to reap from sorrow 



112 A Commentary Upon 

such wisdom as it affords. The first of Feb- 
ruary naturally suggested Hallam's charac- 
ter as a theme for contemplation, and it is un- 
folded in its several aspects or phases in the 
six following sections. Regarded as a type 
of the " coming race " which is to possess 
the new heavens and the new earth, he is 
worthy of contemplation in a dual attitude — 
in his relations to the individual and in his 
relations to humanity. 

cix 

The wonderful harmony and symmetry of 
Hallam's intellect are first exhibited, the rare 
equilibrium of his powers. All contempo- 
rary testimony concerns to show that Tenny- 
son has given us no merely idealized portrait 
of his hero. Proof after proof may be cited 
— the evidence of Mr. Gladstone, the tributes 
of Sir Francis Doyle in his Reminiscences, 
and the Remains of Arthur Hallam printed 
for private circulation by his father, the his- 
torian, in 1853. It is he to whom reference 
is made in the opening lines of this section — 

" Heart affluence in discursive talk 
From household fountains never dry'* 

The son enjoyed the rare advantage of as- 



Tennyson's '^ In Memoriam'* 113 

soclation with his gifted and broadly cultured 
father. 

cx 

His power to inspire delight and elevate 
others is next delineated — that is, his rela- 
tions to his fellow-men. His " converse " 
attracted all ages and conditions — the men of 
" rathe and riper years," that is, the young 
as well as the old. The word '' rathe " oc- 
curs here only in the poem, though it may be 
found in the Idyls of the King. (See 
Lancelot and Elaine.) This cherished term 
of our elder poets had fallen into shadow 
since Milton sang of the " rathe primrose," 
Lycidas, line 142; and even at that time — 
1638 — it was a conscious and deliberate 
archaism. It remained in eclipse until the 
great renaissance that was developed in our 
language with the incoming of the later 
Georgian epoch, when Scott, Wordsworth, 
and Coleridge began their work of dialectic 
regeneration, recalling to consciousness much 
of the vanished power and energy of our 
olden vernacular. In the exercise of their 
high prerogative they were succeeded during 
the Victorian day by Browning, Tennyson, 
Swinburne and William Morris. 

The word " converse " in the first line of 



114 ^ Commentary Upon 

this section is used in the sense of association 
or companionship, implying much more than 
is signified by conversation in its modern and 
restricted acceptation.* 

The grace, the tact, and the delicacy of his 
hero are set forth with minuteness and detail 
— his versatility of genius, his power of 
adaptation to circumstances and environment. 
Conspicuous among his nobler traits was his 
rigid avoidance of slander: like the "blame- 
less king," he spoke no slander, no, nor lis- 
tened to it "; it seemed to hide its " double 
tongue " in his presence, as if disarmed by 
mere contact with almost ideal purity. 

* To adopt the language of Edmund Spenser in the 
letter addressed to Gabriel Harvey, which prefaces The 
Shepherd's Calendar, " it is one of especial praise of many 
which are due this poet, that he hath laboured to restore 
as to their rightful heritage, such good and natural Eng- 
lish words, which have been long time out of use and 
almost clean disinherited." The entire letter is rich in 
suggestion to the student of our linguistic evolution and 
to the student of Tennyson in particular, apart from its 
abstract philological interest and significance. The age 
of Wordsworth, Scott, Coleridge, and Keats was an era 
of dialectic regeneration, as clearly defined in its charac- 
ter, if not so intense and pervasive in its action as that 
which precluded " the spacious times of great Elizabeth." 
To illustrate our comprehensive statement by additional 
examples of this very word rathe, as received in our 
modern poetic vocabulary, it is used by Hartley Coleridge, 
James Russell Lowell, Scott in Rokeby, "the rathe prim- 
rose," 4-2; Bulwer in his Neiv Timon; and in prose by 
J. A. Symonds in his essays on art. 



Tennyson* s ^^ In Memoriam** 115 

CXI 

Like his namesake of the Round Table, 
the poet's ideal hero, he was a " selfless man 
and stainless gentleman," bearing his title 
without reproach or abuse — 

" Not being less but more than all 
The gentleness he seemed to be " — 

as marked off from him whose churlish 
nature may have acquired a touch of conven- 
tional gentility, a mere ostentation of good 
breeding; but the clownish and coltish spirit 
will break through the thin veil of ceremo- 
nialism and assert Itself. This delineation of 
Hallam should be read in connection with 
Cardinal Newman's delicate and discriminat- 
ing presentation of the same subject, and 
with Thackeray's familiar lines In which a 
similar teaching and a kindred lesson are set 
forth. The fifth stanza of this section — 

" Nor even narrowness or spite, 
Or villain fancy fleeting by, 
Drew in the expression of an eye. 
Where God and Nature met in light " — 

should be compared with the following lines 
from the elegy of Matthew Roydon upon the 



Ii6 A Commentary Upon 

nobleness and knightliness of Sir Philip Sid- 
ney: 

" A sweet attractive kind of grace, 
A full assurance given by looks, 
Continual comfort in a face. 
The lineaments of Gospel books, 
I trow that countenance cannot He, 
Whose thoughts are legible In the eye." 

Chaucer's Knight and other types of the 
ideal gentleman in the varying stages of civi- 
lization will suggest themselves, but the de- 
lineation exhibited in the portraiture of 
Hallam is probably unsurpassed in literature 
for grace, comprehensiveness, delicacy, and 
truth. 

CXII 

The unfolding of new and unsuspected 
energies was characteristic, some " novel 
power," some latent force was perpetually 
springing up. Blended with these steadily 
developing gifts there was a self-reverence, a 
sereneness, a self-control that kept them in 
harmony. His high wisdom tempered and 
chastened the conceit of his associates, so 
that they " set light by narrower perfect- 
ness," or regarded with kindly toleration 
those whose endowments and acquirements 



Tennyson's '' In Memoriam '* 117 

were inferior to his own — " the lesser lords 
of doom." 

CXIII 

Hallam died in the mere dawning of his 
powers. Had he lived to the attainment of 
their maturity he would have proved a de- 
termining force, an inspiring influence in the 
age of which he formed a part, directing its 
energies, tempering its violence, restraining 
its excesses — " a pillar steadfast in the 
storm." 

CXIV 

The contrast between wisdom and knowl- 
edge, which is the characteristic note of this 
section, should be read in relation to those 
stanzas of the earlier version of Locksley 
Hall, in which the sam.e theme is suggested, 
but not elaborated. *' Knowledge comes, but 
wisdom lingers," being merely flashed upon 
the canvas in one or two supreme utterances 
which have long ago wrought themselves into 
the consciousness of our language. A rich 
and fruitful suggestion may also be gathered 
from a comparison of the first stanza with 
a passage in Ulysses, a poem which whether 
in the exercise of a conscious intent, or in the 
absence of a definite purpose, is a bold and 



Ii8 A Commentary Upon 

exhilarating allegory of the adventurous and 
aggressive spirit that has appeared in vary- 
ing ages and in different lands, and has been 
concretely exhibited in men of the Ulyssean 
type^ — Marco Polo, Magellan, Columbus, 
De Gama, Gilbert, Greenville, Drake, Fro- 
blsher. Sir Walter Raleigh, Cavendish. The 
yearning of Ulysses 

" To follow knowledge like a sinking star 
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought " 

has Its reflection In the passage now under 
consideration : 

"Who loves not knowledge? Who shall rail 
Against her beauty ? May she mix 
With men and prosper? Who shall fix 
Her pillars? Let her work prevail." 

The allusion to the fabled Pillars of Her- 
cules, which were supposed in the concep- 
tion of antiquity to mark or fix the possibili- 
ties of attainment and achievement, Is unmis- 
takable. The passage from Ulysses is per- 
vaded by the very breath of the Baconian 
philosophy: we have in our mind's eye no 
dim or shadowy vision of the Advancement 
of Learning, with its characteristic design, 
a ship striding boldly and fearlessly through 



Tennyson's ''In Memoriam'^ 119 

the Pillars, with the suggestive motto Plus 
Ultra and the still more suggestive passage 
from the prophecy of Daniel, Chapter XII, 
Verse IV — '' Many shall run to and fro, and 
knowledge shall be Increased " — so touched 
by the spirit of inspiration as to look beyond 
the ages and reflect the form and pressure 
of the modern day. 

Hallam was a bright and shining example 
of that sentiment of reverence and charity 
untempered and unchastened by which 
knowledge becomes a " wild Pallas of the 
brain," — a familiar allusion to the ancient 
myth, — and degenerates into mere intellec- 
tualism, a truth inculated and enforced in the 
exquisite allegory of The Palace of Art. 
This entire section should be read in rela- 
tion to stanza 7 of the prefatory poem, and 
with stanza 5 of the poem beginning " Love 
thou thy land, with love far-brought." 

cxv 

We pass into the freshness and glory of 
spring, emblem of reviving hope and trust, 
the traditional season of the creation. He 
Is In sympathy with the dawning life of Na- 
ture. The same touch of hope that marked 
the New Year and the birthday of Hallam 
is discernible. Browning's Home Thoughts 



I20 A Commentary Upon 

From^ Abroad may be compared with the de- 
scription of spring In this section. The 
flight of the lark, referred to in stanza 
second, is a favorite theme of our poets in 
all ages, and illustrations without number may 
be cited, from Chaucer to Shelley and the 
poets of our own days. Its characteristic 
flight is in the early morn, as the first rays of 
the dawning sun are apparent, and it rises 
to so great a height that It becomes Invisible, 
but its melody Is not lost, its " sightless 
song " Is not unheard. Faust, part I, scene 
II, will furnish a parallel to the allusion in 
stanza second — 

" When o'er our heads lost in the vaulted azure 
The lark sends down his flickering lay." 

See also Miss Christina Rossettl's A Green 
Cornfield and In The Willow Shade, 

CXVI 

The sentiment elicited by the spring-tide^ — 
" the life re-orient out of dust " — is one less 
of sadness than of hope, and prophetic of 
*' some strong bond which Is to be" — the 
reunion with Hallam. 

CXVII 

The flight of time, — " the rolling hours," 
— all the modes by which the lapse of days 



Tennyson's '' In Memoriam '' 121 

and years Is Indicated, but hasten the longed- 
for consummation. The third stanza of 
this section Is perhaps the most artificial 
and conceited — using that word In Its olden 
sense — that occurs In the poem. 

CXVIII 

The distinction between the material and 
the spiritual world Is sharply brought out and 
exhibited. Those whom we call the dead 
are merely expanding their powers, and un- 
folding new, undreamed of capacities — they 
are the " breathers of an ampler day for 
ever nobler ends." The evolution of our 
globe — In accordance with the Nebular Hy- 
pothesis — Is stated with a lucidity and con- 
ciseness that science might envy, and Is set 
forth as an allegory or parable of the evolu- 
tion of the human race. The processes, 
transmutations, and developments through 
which our physical world has passed In Its 
progress from chaos to cosmos are a figure 
or type of the discipline, the vicissitudes, the 
shocks and agonies through which the 
" higher race " must pass as It comes grad- 
ually nearer to 

" That far-off divine event 

To which the whole creation moves." 



122 A Commentary Upon 

Even if man fail, his experience is not devoid 
of noble lessons. The obligation rests upon 
all to subdue the lower nature, bringing it 
into subjection to the higher. The truth 
embodied in the last stanza was substantially 
expressed by Dr. Donne more than two hun- 
dred years before In Memoriam was begun. 
The Nebular Hypothesis is stated in The 
Princess, part 2, as well as in section ii8, 
with a cogency and luminousness scarcely sur- 
passed in technical formulations of scientific 
truth. 

The hope expressed in stanza 2, 118, 

" That those we call the dead 
Are breathers of an ampler day 
For even nobler ends " — 

seems to have had a foreshadowing at least 
in the Platonic philosophy. See Harford's 
Life of Michael Angelo, volume i, pages 76- 
79, also Milton's sonnet On The Religious 
Memory of Mrs. Catherine Thomson, My 
Christian Friend: 

" Meekly thou didst resign this earthly load 
Of Death, called Life, which us from Life doth 



The passage from Harford is too long for 



Tennyson's * In Memoriam*' 123 

insertion, but it is eminently suggestive, es- 
pecially if read in connection with this section 
of In Memoriam. See also Miss Christina 
Rossetti's L. E. L., stanza 6 — 

" True love is last, true life is born of death." 

CXIX 

He visits the home of the Hallams in Lon- 
don, 67 Wimpole Street, the " dark house " 
referred to in section 7. His feelings are 
marked by serenity, not untouched by sad- 
ness; but still — a contrast to the harrowing 
sorrow which characterized the previous 
visit. 

cxx 

He feels that he has successfully com- 
bated the materialistic philosophy, which is 
subversive of spiritual life and of all hope 
beyond the present sphere. He compares his 
experience to that of St. Paul, described in 
first Corinthians, chapter 15, verse 32. The 
modem and widely prevailing theory of evo- 
lution from lower to higher organisms re- 
ceives apparently slight comfort from the 
concluding stanza, although In Memoriam 
was written before the researches of Darwin 
had been given to the world. The germ of 



124 A Commentary Upon 

the Darwinian system is much older, how- 
ever, than the time of Darwin himself. 

CXXI 

A graceful comparison is Introduced, 
" suggested by the thought of the planet 
Venus, the star of love, which, being both 
evening and morning star, illustrates in one 
the rising of love on the darkened and de- 
spairing life — to cheer Its night, and the 
rising of love on the life progressing in hope 
— to herald its morning." * 

CXXII 

A reminiscence of section 95, in which 
Hallam's soul is described as having 
" flashed " upon him, and he enjoyed an hour 
of sweet communion with him. He Implores 
a renewal of that blissful hour. See Words- 
worth's Laodamia. 

CXXIII 

Geological or physical transformations oc- 
cur, the character of the earth Is renewed 
from age to age, types of animal life become 
extinct, the streaming roar of great cities is 
heard where once the central sea held un- 
challenged sway — but his love Is Incapable 

* Genung, " Commentary upon In Memoriam" 



N 



Tennyson^ s ''In Memoriam'^ 125 

even of the thought of change. See Anti- 
strophe to Colllns's Ode To Liberty, 

cxxiv 

This section is one marked by extreme 
subtlety of thought, and by a condensation of 
form which renders the meaning difficult of 
apprehension: it yields its inward deeps only 
to persistent concentrated study. The stan- 
zas 3-6 evidently have in mind the poet's 
spiritual meditations and experiences, re- 
corded in 54-56. The conception of God, 
however viewed — from the standpoint of al- 
most hopeless doubt, or devoted and inten- 
sive faith, whether regarded as a vague and 
undefined power whose existence we merely 
conjecture, is not to be realized in natural 
phenomena or in any phase of physical crea- 
tion, in the minute differentiations of science, 
in classification and analogy, nor in the pro- 
cess of dialectic speculation, the methods and 
the nomenclature of the schools. The revel- 
ation is through faith and faith alone, and 
even if the realizing faculty should at times 
grow faint or fall asleep, and unbelief or the 
voice of the tempter make itself heard, the 
purely logical or critical nature, " the freez- 
ing reason," would vanish at the uprising 
and assertion of the true and nobler self. In 



126 A Commentary Upon 

other words, the intuitions of the heart 
triumph over the chilling cavils and ghastly 
suggestions of the skeptical intellect. It is 
the trust of childhood in fatherhood, the 
light that lightens our darkness; it is the fear 
dispelled through consciousness of fatherly 
nearness; it is the hand stretched out in the 
gloom, to sustain and succor even those who 
" faintly trust the larger hope." 

cxxv 

Despite an occasional bitterness of tone, 
his hope has never failed, even when 

" There seemed to live 
A contradiction on the tongue." 

Over all the spirit of love presided, adapting 
himself to the wayward moods of the poet 
as expressed and interpreted by his song, and 
tempering his grief by affording a medium 
for its utterance. 

CXXVI 

The presiding power of love is the assur- 
ance that " all is well " even in hours of 
gloom — in seasons of depression, in crises 
and in exigencies. " Perfect love casteth out 
fear.'' 



Tennyson's '^ In Memoriam'^ 127 

CXXVII 
The student of history would naturally be 
inclined to pronounce this section a concise 
and graphic characterization of the year 
1848, one of the memorable periods of revo- 
lution in Europe. Yet Tennyson's own words 
may be cited to show that the passage was 
written long in advance of the events to 
which it is supposed to have reference: its 
realistic accuracy is prophetic or anticipatory, 
not designed, perhaps not even conscious. 
The section may be suggestively compared 
with the closing chapter. Volume II, pages 
616, 617, of Macaulay's History of Eng- 
land, in which the great historic drama that 
Tennyson foreshadowed in the exercise of the 
prophetic function of the poet is portrayed 
from the contemporary viewpoint of a mas- 
terful but deliberate artistic purpose. 

CXXVIII 

The hope of the future lies in the love 
which undaunted even in the face of death, 
is still an ally of that " lesser faith," which 
discerns the evolutions of history in their in- 
tricacy and complexity. All things work to- 
gether for good, not for accidental or arbi- 
trary ends or barren issues, but for the attain- 
ment of one supreme and consummate pur- 



128 A Commentary Upon 

pose. There are in this section seeming 
references to existing historical develop- 
ments and tendencies, but these are probably 
prophetic rather than descriptive — the vision 
rather than the fulfilment, subjective assur- 
ance rather than achieved or accomplished 
results. 

The student of history contemporary with 
the composition of In Memoriam might 
easily trace possible allusions to the complex 
revolutionary movements of 1848 in France, 
Germany, and Italy; to the agitations that 
marked the university life of Germany dur- 
ing this period; the yearning for political 
freedom, not yet realized, nor thoroughly un- 
derstood; the tendency toward restoration of 
those peerless Gothic churches and cathe- 
drals, " dreams wrought in stone," the noblest 
incarnation of the life and ideal of the me- 
dieval age. In any event, the prophetic vi- 
sion of the poet, as embodied in this section, 
has in later years largely passed into the 
sphere of historic achievement. 

CXXIX 

His glorified friend is addressed as the 
concrete expression of the ideal — the world's 
exemplar and perfect type. " Sorrow is lost 
in the more exalted sentiment of his certain 



Tennyson* s ^^ In Memortam** 129 

reunion with Hallam and in the strength de- 
rived from a consciousness of the worthiness 
of their past friendship." 

cxxx 

The universe is pervaded by Hallam's 
presence — he has become a '* diffusive 
power," and the poet's own love unfolding 
in vaster measure, as well as purer form, ap- 
proaches nearer to the divine standard and 
ideal. Note Shelley's lines in Adonais, be- 
ginning, " He is made one with nature." 

CXXXI 

The poem proper closes with the inimi- 
table appeal or Invocation of which this sec- 
tion consists. The " living will " referred to 
is our own personal free will. The two last 
lines of stanza first are suggested by first 
Corinthians, Chapter X, verse IV. The pas- 
sage Is marred by any endeavor to interpret 
its richness of meaning, Its purity of faith, its 
note of triumphant ascension above all 
doubt, and Its thorough accord with stanza 
first of the Prologue, of which It seems to 
form the exultant refrain and the perfect 
fulfilment. 

The remainder of the poem is a nuptial 



130 A Commentary Upon 

song, commemorating the marriage of the 
youngest sister of the poet, Cecilia Tennyson, 
to Edmund Law Lushington, for many years 
Professor of Greek in the University of 
Glasgow, and a scholar of rare attainments, 
being regarded by some capable judges as, 
after Bishop Thirlwall, the most learned man 
of his time in England. Miss Emily Tenny- 
son, who had been betrothed to Arthur Hal- 
lam, finally married Captain Jesse, an officer 
of the British Navy. Lushington's com- 
petitor for the chair which he held in the 
University of Glasgow was Robert Lowe, 
Viscount Sherbrooke, who declared that his 
defeat was the bitterest disappointment of his 
life; but upon Lushington's retirement after 
many years of most honorable service he 
frankly acknowledged the superior wisdom 
and judgment displayed in his selection. In 
section 85, stanza 2, Lushington is intro- 
duced for the first time, and the part he is 
destined to play in the final evolution of the 
poem is clearly intimated and foreshadowed. 
The marriage occurred October loth, 1842 
— Hallam died in 1833. The interval of nine 
years between these events will explain the 
allusions in the first, second, and third stan- 
zas. It is Lushington to whom Tennyson 
refers with characteristic delicacy and grace 



Tennyson's ''In Memoriam'^ 131 

in the tenth stanza, which as an exposition of 
ideal culture is unsurpassed in literature — in 
accuracy, discrimination, and clear perception 
of all the elements that constitute the scholar. 
The allusion to 

" The star that shook betwixt the palms of 
paradise," 

Stanza 8, may be in a measure explained by 
the following extract from the article on the 
palm-tree in Calmet's Dictionary, page 722: 

" The straight and lofty growth of the palm- 
tree — ^its longevity and great fecundity, the perma- 
nency and perpetual flourishing of its leaves, and 
their form, resembling the solar rays — makes it a 
very proper emblem of the natural and thence of the 
divine light. Hence in the holy place or sanctuary 
of the temple, palm-trees were engraved on the walls 
and doors, between the coupled cherubs. Hence at 
the Feast of Tabernacles branches of palms were to 
be used, among others, in making their booths. 
Palm branches were also used as emblems of victory, 
both by believers and idolaters. . . . Doubtless 
believers, by bearing palm-trees after a victory, or 
in triumph, meant to acknowledge the supreme 
author of their success and prosperity, and to carry 
on their thoughts to the Divine Light, the great 
conqueror over sin and death. And the idolaters, 
likewise, probably used palms on such occasions, not 



132 A Commentary Upon 

without respect to Apollo or the sun, to whom 
among them they were consecrated. Hence proba- 
bly we have the name of a place, * Baal Tamar ' — 
Tamar being the name of the palm-tree; it being 
so called in honor of Baal or the sun, whose image, 
it may be, was there accompanied by this tree. He- 
rodotus states that there were many palm-trees at 
Apollo's temple at Brutus, in Egypt, and that at 
Sais, in the temple of Minerva or Athena (a name 
for the solar light) there were artificial columns in 
imitation of palm-trees. In Canticles VHiy, the 
statue of the bride is compared to a palm-tree, which 
conveys a pleasing idea of her gracefulness and 
beauty: so Ulysses likens the young princess Nau- 
sicaa to a young palm-tree growing by Apollo's 
altar at Delos, making almost the same comparison 
as that of Solomon. As the Greek name for 
this tree signifies also the fabulous bird, called the 
phcenix, some of the fathers have supposed that the 
psalmist — XCn:i2 — lalludes to the latter, and on 
his authority have made the phoenix an emblem of 
a resurrection. Tertullian calls it a full and strik- 
ing emblem of this hope. But the tree, also, seems 
to have been considered as emblematical of the re- 
incarnation of the human body, from its being found 
in some burial places in the East. In our colder 
climates we have substituted the yew-tree in its 
place." 

The observance or commemoration of 
Palm Sunday recalls that emblematic signifi- 
cance of the tree which associates It with 



Tennyson's ''In Memoriam'^ 133 

victory or triumph and with the public honors 
bestowed upon heroes and conquerors. 

The opening lines of Dryden's noble elegy 
in memory of Mrs. Anne Killigrew, 1686, 
will also aid us in illustrating the meaning of 
the passage: 

"Thou youngest virgin daughter of the skies, 
Made in the last promotion of the blest, 
Whose palms new plucked from Paradise, 
In spreading branches more sublimely rise. 
Rich with immortal green above the rest; 
Whether adopted to some neighboring star. 
Thou roU'st above us in thy wandering race. 
Or in procession fixed and regular 
Moved with the heaven's majestic pace, 
Or called to more superior bliss 
Thou treadest with seraph ims the vast abyss." 

See also Webster's Duchess of Malfi, Act 
I, Scene I, 469-471 : 

" That we may imitate the loving palms, 
Best emblem of a peaceful marriage, 
That never bore fruit divided." 

See Hamlet, Act V, Scene II, line 40; also 
Milton's At a Solemn Music, line 14. 

Hallam is not forgotten on this festal 
occasion. He had known the bride in her 



134 ^ Commentary Upon 

early days, and had predicted her matured 
grace and development. His memory, in- 
stead of growing dim, is cherished with that 
spiritualized tenderness which, though ever 
mindful and reverent of the dead, does not 
disregard the claims of the living, a thought 
which is in perfect harmony with the intro- 
duction of marriage ceremonies and rejoic- 
ings, since it is in marriage that love finds its 
purest, holiest, and happiest expression. The 
conception of a still greater era is suggested 
by the thought of the soul that may proceed 
from this union, who, contributing to the 
progression of the race which is to follow, 
with increasing light, fresh acquirement, ex- 
panding knowledge, shall be a link between 
us and that ideal day toward which the vision 
of the poet has often and yearningly looked. 
Of this perfected manhood Arthur Hallam 
was the forecaste and the type. The climax 
is attained in the conception of God and im- 
mortality which is the characteristic note of 
the poem. Its principle of unity and con- 
tinuity, the law of Its life. 

It Is needless to add In bringing our analy- 
sis of In Memoriam to a close, that the aim 
has not been to exhaust, nor even unduly to 
elaborate, but to quicken. Every successive 
reading has Impressed us more and more 



Tennyson's ''In Memortam^' 135 

with the boundless possibilities of this sur- 
passing creation of poetic power, tempered 
by a supreme artistic grace and illumined by 
the highest spiritual discernment. As num- 
bered with those who trust *' the larger 
hope," we shall be glad to extend, in our im- 
perfect measure, the range and the potency 
of a work which we regard as one of the 
noblest and purest inspirations of our litera- 
ture in an age marked by some of its most 
abiding achievements. The prophetic power, 
spiritual vision and illumination blending in 
its conception and its evolution, will unfold 
and reveal themselves as we broaden into 
that ample and golden light which is the 
harbinger of the perfect day.^i 



END 



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